Brightcon 2026, hackathon and courses

Heat pump deployment is widely assumed to reduce building-sector greenhouse gas emissions. This assumption holds in countries with low-carbon electricity grids but has rarely been tested for carbon-intensive grid contexts using open LCA tools and data. This contribution presents a Brightway2-based case study that computes the operational global warming potential (GWP) of a residential air-source heat pump (COP = 3.0, R410A) across multiple regions using Ecoinvent 3.12 cutoff electricity market activities. Results show that Morocco's grid carbon intensity, computed at approximately 1120 g CO₂-eq/kWh from Ecoinvent, yields an ASHP operational GWP of 115.5 g CO₂-eq/MJ — exceeding the equivalent gas boiler benchmark. This contrasts sharply with France or Switzerland, where the same system achieves substantially lower impacts. The workflow, implemented as a reproducible Python script with parameterized activity matching and LCIA computation, illustrates how open tools and open data can challenge policy assumptions that are implicitly calibrated to European grid conditions. The presentation will share the notebook and discuss how regional grid data availability in Ecoinvent shapes LCA conclusions for underrepresented regions such as North Africa and the MENA area.