TY  - JOUR
A1  - Goray, Lars
T1  - Life cycle energy analysis and ecological impact of wind turbines - a comparison of life cycle assessments
JF  - Educational Journal of Renewable Energy Short Reviews
N2  - The use of wind power is rapidly expanding worldwide. It is important to examine the impact of wind turbines on the environment to see if they provide a net benefit and to identify potential for improving. Therefore life cycle assessments (LCA) of different wind turbine types are compared in this short review. The results are then shown side by side in tables for comparison. Overall the LCAs show that wind turbines compensate the required energy and emitted pollutants after approx. 6-16 months. The energy payback period (EPP) for 2 MW onshore wind turbines remained roughly the same since 2009 with approximately 7 months. Onshore wind turbines have a higher impact due to emissions but a shorter EPP than offshore wind turbines. The estimated service life of 20 years should be maximized to ensure a high energy yield ratio. The biggest impact on the environment results from the processes to provide the building material e.g. steel and cement. That impact could be reduced by 20 % if recycled steel would be used. It is shown that wind power is one of the cleanest energy sources. But further investigations in material processing and recycling are important to improve the eco-balance of wind turbines.
T3  - EGU Master Journal of Renewable Energy Short Reviews - 2023_02 
KW  - wind turbine
KW  - wind power
KW  - regenerative energy
KW  - life cycle assessment
KW  - energy analysis
Y1  - 2023
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:hbz:836-opus-172613
SP  - 8
EP  - 15
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Quest, Gemina
A1  - Arendt, Rosalie
A1  - Klemm, Christian
A1  - Bach, Vanessa
A1  - Budde, Janik
A1  - Vennemann, Peter
A1  - Finkbeiner, Matthias
T1  - Integrated Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Power and Heat Supply for a Neighborhood: A Case Study of Herne, Germany
JF  - energies
N2  - (1) The use of renewable energy for power and heat supply is one of the strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As only 14% of German households are supplied with renewable energy, a shift is necessary. This shift should be realized with the lowest possible environmental impact. This paper assesses the environmental impacts of changes in energy generation and distribution, by integrating the life cycle assessment (LCA) method into energy system models (ESM). (2) The integrated LCA is applied to a case study of the German neighborhood of Herne, (i) to optimize the energy supply, considering different technologies, and (ii) to determine the environmental impacts of the base case (status quo), a cost-optimized scenario, and a CO2-optimized scenario. (3) The use of gas boilers in the base case is substituted with CHPs, surface water heat pumps and PV-systems in the CO2-optimized scenario, and five ground-coupled heat pumps and PV-systems for the cost-optimized scenario. This technology shift led to a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of almost 40% in the cost-optimized, and more than 50% in the CO2-optimized, scenario. However, technology shifts, e.g., due to oversized battery storage, risk higher impacts in other categories, such as terrestrial eco toxicity, by around 22%. Thus, it can be recommended to use smaller battery storage systems. (4) By combining ESM and LCA, additional environmental impacts beyond GHG emissions can be quantified, and therefore trade-offs between environmental impacts can be identified. Furthermore, only applying ESM leads to an underestimation of greenhouse gas emissions of around 10%. However, combining ESM and LCA required significant effort and is not yet possible using an integrated software.
KW  - LCA
KW  - life cycle assessment
KW  - energy system model
KW  - ILCA
KW  - urban energy system
Y1  - 2022
UR  - https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/16/5900
U6  - http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/en15165900
SN  - 1996-1073
VL  - 15
IS  - 16
SP  - 5900
ER  -