This API provides import and export functionalities for LCA data formats likeEcoSpold 01/02 and ILCD.

Import

An import of a set of EcoSpold 02 files via the openLCA API can be done in thefollowing way:

Hi I am using open LCA on a mac and have downloaded the ecoinvent dataset in the.spold format and also a a zipped file. When I try to import.

The import accepts *.spold-files in the EcoSpold 02 format and *.zip-filescontaining such files. The given files will be parsed two times: In the firstrun all reference data will be imported (flows, categories, locations etc.).After this, the processes are imported and linked together by mapping theEcoSpold 02 activity-link field to the default provider field in openLCA.

Process and product UUIDs

On difficulty when importing the ecoinvent 3 database (which is the source forEcoSpold 02 data sets) is that activity IDs are not unique for process data setsin this database. Thus, we cannot do a direct mapping of EcoSpold 02 activitydata sets to openLCA process data sets in the import. However, the combinationof the activity ID and the product ID (means the intermediate exchange ID of theactivity with outputGroup = 0) should be unique. Therefore we create an UUID fromthe combination of the activity ID and product ID and set this as reference IDof the mapped openLCA process:

Additionally, an activity data set in ecoinvent 3 can have the same product flow(means that the exchange has the same intermediateExchangeId) asinput multiple times but linked to different activities providing these inputs.The linking algorithm in openLCA currently does not support this as it expectsthat there can be only one provider of a distinct product flow for a processreceiving this product as input. To solve this, we apply the same principle asfor the process IDs and generate an UUID for the products as combination of theproduct ID and the ID of the activity producing this product (note that wechange the order of the parameters in the KeyGen-function to get a differentUUID for the product):

If it is possible, we also tag this product flow with the location of theactivity.

Process categorisation

The EcoSpold 02 format allows the classification of a process data set withmultiple classifications. A classification section in a data set may look likethis:

There is now hierarchy defined for these classifications (but it could bederived). openLCA currently only supports a single categorisation of processes.Thus, we take the ISIC classes in the import (if available).

Flow categorisation

The current version of the ecoinvent 3 database does not provide categories forproduct flows (intermediate exchanges). Thus, we take the category of a process(the ISIC class) also for the respective output product of this process.

Units and flow properties

The EcoSpold 02 format has no concept of unit groups like the ILCD format andopenLCA. Ksd editor for mac. Also the concept of flow properties is different in EcoSpold 02 asthe value for a flow property can be different in every input/output. Incontrary, flow properties in ILCD and openLCA are defined for a flow andthe amounts for these flow properties are convertible.

The import currently maps units from EcoSpold 02 that directly can be mapped toan openLCA unit (with unit group and flow property). This is a fixed list andcan be found in the file ei3_unit_map.csv.

Parameters

It is currently not possible to evaluate all parameters of the ecoinventdatabase with openLCA because of the following reasons:

• there are LiveLink functions which link to system local Excel tables informulas of some data sets
• there are functions like UnitConversion (would mean that a formulainterpreter knows units) or Ref(<UUID>) (would mean that we have have thesame context UUIDs in our data sets available in the calculation)

Thus, by default we do not import the parameters. However, the import ofparameters can be enabled via

TODO

• import unknown units and handle flow properties (see problems above)