Search

The purpose of this report is to illustrate the contribution of the International Energy Agency - Energy in Buildings and Communities (IEA EBC) Programme Annex 72 members to the topic of life-cycle multi-objective optimization of buildings performance. In detail, the purpose of the report is: To collect existing case studies developed by the Annex 72 members on optimization techniques applied for finding an environmental-energy-economic “optimum” among different design or retrofitting solutions; To examine the collected case studies and compare methodologies, applications and results, and deriving some general conclusions on the topic. The case studies are intended to be used as a basic knowledge for identifying: Optimization techniques to be used for finding the “optimum” among different alternative solutions; Solutions to be adopted for reducing both the energy consumption during the operation and the environmental impacts and costs during the whole life cycle and for avoiding that the benefits of a low energy building during operation are offset by the higher impacts due to additional materials/costs and energy required during the other life-cycle stages. The target groups of this report are scientists and developers and providers of building design tools.

This report focuses on methodological issues related to the determination, assessment and presentation of the environmental performance of buildings. The purpose of this report is to provide the foundations to responsible parties for further developing their specific methods to assess the primary energy demand, GHG emissions and further environmental impacts of buildings and to increase the mainstreaming of practice globally. As far as possible, this should lead to a standardization of methods used worldwide. Where this goal cannot be achieved, methodological differences can be at least identified. The specific objectives of this report are to: clarify methodological questions that have been shown as significant but are under-addressed in the analysis of methods currently in use in the Annex 72 participating countries provide a consistent and transparent basis for a methodology and reporting structure for environmental performance assessment in line with international standards to enable comparability and usability of results contribute to the interpretation and supplementation of international standards to improve their applicability and support their dissemination promote long-term and life cycle-based thinking, by encouraging the early consideration of likely future environmental impacts regarding maintenance, repair and replacement as well as of durability and adaptability of building components and the building as a whole contribute to the overall efforts of national governments and standard makers to guide construction and real estate industry on how to respond to climate change promote the application of principles for circular economy by encouraging the early consideration of the deconstructability of buildings and building components and quantification of their reuse, recycling and/or recovery potential enable benchmarking and target-setting.

Fighting global warming and increasing the energy security are some of the most relevant objectives of the European energy policy. Thus, defining potential low carbon pathways for the energy sector is of paramount importance in order to identify strategies with the lowest impact on climate. This paper presents an overview of environmental assessment of future electricity scenarios in Sicily (Italy), for 2020 and 2030, characterized by a high exploitation of renewable energy sources. Authors apply the Life Cycle Assessment methodology, according to the standard of the ISO 14040 series, in order to evaluate the environmental impacts of electricity generation in the future scenarios in comparison to the current situation and to quantify the achievable potential environmental improvements. Due to the increase of electricity generation through renewable sources, results show a significant reduction of the non-renewable primary energy consumption. Among all the examined environmental categories, nearly all present a decrease of the impacts. Then, the results highlight that, although an increase in penetration of technologies fed by renewable energy can improve the eco-profile of the electricity generation, it is not possible to reduce all the environmental impact categories. Data and results of this study are site – specific and updated on current and on future Sicily electricity mix generation that can be used as knowledge base in the definition of low carbon energy strategies in Sicily. Moreover, they can support the decision makers and the local authorities in an “ex ante” evaluation of the energy and climate strategies aimed at reducing the CO2 emissions.

Climate change calls for decisive actions to match sustainable development goals, among which key factors are the reduction of energy consumption and carbon footprint. Agri-food sector is one of the main priority areas contained in the European Sustainable Production and Consumption policies, aiming to create more sustainable consumption and production patterns and pushing for environmental international agreements for climate change mitigation and national laws for the efficient use of resources. Public restoration plays a central role in the food consumption sector, at least in developed countries. In particular, institutional catering is playing a relevant role in outdoor meals provided in schools, hospitals, prisons and senior housings, significantly affecting the local food sector. On average in Italy one third of the total meals provided by institutional catering are supplied in schools, where 380 millions of daily meals per year are provided. This consumption is constantly increasing at least in the North/Center Italy. Thus, it becomes of crucial importance to assess the environmental impacts along the production chain, from the cultivation phase, the food processing and the distribution phase to the end-of-life. At international level, it is well recognized that an integrated sustainability assessment must be based on a life cycle approach, that allows to deeply analyse the whole system or supply chain, thus avoiding burden shifting. The presented paper starts from the results of a previous research, in which a tool was developed to evaluate the impacts of food production and to define possible scenarios to improve institutional catering in the school sector in Lombardy Region. The paper here presented reports the further developments of the previous research in order to verify the robustness of the architecture and of the dataset and to make the tool able to assess institutional catering also in terms of environmental effects. In details, the CED (Cumulative Energy Demand) and the GWP (Global Warming Potential) are investigated in depth for the selected food products, according to a life-cycle approach. Particular attention is paid in relation to the sources considered and to the boundary of the analyses, following the scheme of upstream, core and downstream processes for the food chain taken into account. Further improved institutional catering scenarios are defined taking into account both the production and consumption systems and assessing the main energy and environmental items. The authors hope that their contribution could provide a systemic approach of energy and environmental assessment for the stakeholders involved in the institutional catering sector, in order to support the development of new models of food policy.

The fast increase of the electrified vehicles market will translate into an increase of waste batteries after their use in electrified vehicles (xEV). Once collected, batteries are usually recycled; however, their residual capacity (typically varying between 70% and 80% of the initial capacity) could be used in other applications before recycling. The interest in this topic of repurposing xEV batteries is currently high, as can be proven by numerous industrial initiatives by various types of stakeholders along the value chain of xEV batteries and by policy activities related to waste xEV batteries. SASLAB (Sustainability Assessment of Second Life Application of Automotive Batteries), an exploratory project led by JRC under its own initiative in 2016-2017, aims at assessing the sustainability of repurposing xEV batteries to be used in energy storage applications from technical, environmental and social perspectives. Information collected by stakeholders, open literature data and experimental tests for establishing the state of health of lithium-ion batteries (in particular LFP/Graphite, NMC/Graphite and LMO-NMC/Graphite based battery cells) represented the necessary background and input information for the assessment of the performances of xEV battery life cycle. Renewables (photovoltaics) firming, photovoltaics smoothing, primary frequency regulation, energy time shift and peak shaving are considered as the possible second-use stationary storage applications for analysis within SASLAB. Experimental tests were performed on both, new and aged cells. The majority of aged cells were disassembled from a battery pack of a used series production xEV. Experimental investigations aim at both, to understand better the performance of cells in second use after being dismissed from first use, and to provide input parameters for the environmental assessment model. The experimental tests are partially still ongoing and further results are expected to become available beyond the end of SASLAB project. To obtain an overview of the size of the xEV batteries flows along their life cycle, and hence to understand the potential size of repurposing activities in the future, a predictive and parametrized model was built and is ready to be updated according to new future data. The model allows to take into account also the (residual) capacity of xEV batteries and the (critical) raw materials embedded in the various type of xEV batteries. For the environmental assessment, an adapted life-cycle based method was developed and applied to different systems in order to quantify benefits/drawbacks of the adoption of repurposed xEV batteries in second-use applications. Data derived from laboratory tests and primary data concerning energy flows of the assessed applications were used as input for the environmental assessment. Under certain conditions, the assessment results depict environmental benefits related to the extension the xEV batteries’ lifetime through their second-use in the assessed applications. In the analysis, the importance of using primary data is highlighted especially concerning the energy flows of the system in combination with the characteristics of the battery used to store energy. A more comprehensive environmental assessment of repurposing options for xEV batteries will need to look at more cases (other battery chemistries, other reuse scenarios, etc.) to derive more extensive and firmer conclusions. Experimental work is being continued at the JRC and the availability of further data about the batteries' performances could allow the extension of the assessment to different types of batteries in different second-use applications. A more complete sustainability assessment of the second-use of xEV batteries that could be useful to support EU policy development will also require more efforts in the future in terms of both the social and economic assessment., JRC.D.3-Land Resources

Negli ultimi anni l’attenzione verso le problematiche connesse al cambiamento climatico e all’approvvigionamento energetico è diventata sempre più rilevante. L’Unione Europea ha approvato il “pacchetto clima-energia” che mira, entro il 2030, a ridurre le emissioni di gas ad effetto serra del 40% rispetto al 1990 e ad incrementare la quota di energia prodotta da fonti rinnovabili almeno al 27%. Per iniziare a stimare i benefici indotti dall’incremento della produzione di elettricità da fonti rinnovabili, nel presente lavoro vengono stimati gli impatti energetico-ambientali connessi alla produzione di 1 kWh di energia elettrica in Sicilia nell’arco temporale 2000 – 2011, tramite l’applicazione della metodologia Life Cycle Assessment.

I sistemi “edificio-impianto” di nuova costruzione, caratterizzati da migliori prestazioni energetiche, stanno riducendo sensibilmente gli impatti energetico-ambientali connessi alla loro fase d’uso. Per quantificare i costi energetici ed ambientali necessari ad ottenere tali prestazioni è necessario l’utilizzo di un approccio integrato alla progettazione, che coinvolga sia una simulazione termofisica della fase d’uso, che uno studio di Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) applicato all’intero ciclo di vita dell’edificio. L’articolo presenta un componente informatico innovativo integrato in ambiente TRNSYS che permette di integrare uno studio LCA di un edificio alla simulazione termofisica, in accordo alla normativa UNI EN 15978. Il componente è stato applicato alla modellizzazione LCA di un edificio ad energia netta zero e validato utilizzando i risultati di un'analisi LCA dettagliata dello stesso edificio, ottenendo scostamenti inferiori all’1%.

The bio-wastes pyrolysis is a waste to energy strategy that converts bio-wastes into valuable products (bio-char, bio-oil) with wide use in the agri-food sector. However, limited efforts are paid to the investigation of its environmental sustainability: in this context, the study contributes the need towards the assessment of a wide range of environmental impacts for the pyrolysis process of different types of bio-wastes under different operating conditions. The study estimates the potential environmental impacts related to bio-char production from the pyrolysis of several different agro-industrial residues and different temperatures and identifies the process “hot spots”. The analysis is carried out through the life cycle assessment methodology. The functional unit for the analysis is 1 MJ of thermal energy potentially released during the complete combustion of bio-char obtained from the pyrolysis process. The study highlights that, under the examined conditions, the type of biomass affects the environmental impacts of the pyrolysis process more than the peak pyrolysis temperature. Among the biomasses tested, bio-char obtained from orange peels has the lower environmental impacts, with an average percentage difference of about 16% compared to bio-char obtained from olive tree trimmings that has the worst environmental performance. For each biomass, the impacts associated to bio-char obtained with different operational temperatures have percentage differences in general lower than 5%. A contribution analysis shows that the electricity consumed during the operational phase is responsible for the largest impacts in all the examined impact categories, followed by bio-wastes transportation. In detail, the contribution of the electricity to the total impact ranges from minimum values of about 44% (for cumulative energy demand) up to 91% (for terrestrial eutrophication), while transportation contributions range from a minimum of about 4% (for terrestrial and marine eutrophication) to 36% for mineral, fossil and renewable resource depletion. Therefore, the use of more energy efficient processes and technologies and the diffusion of distributed pyrolysis systems near farms can significantly improve the environmental performance of the system examined.

Traction batteries are a key factor in the environmental sustainability of electric mobility and, therefore, it is necessary to evaluate their environmental performance to allow a comprehensive sustainability assessment of electric mobility. This article presents an environmental assessment of a lithium-ion traction battery for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, characterized by a composite cathode material of lithium manganese oxide (LiMn2O4) and lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide Li(NixCoyMn1-x-y)O2. Composite cathode material is an emerging technology that promises to combine the merits of several active materials into a hybrid electrode to optimize performance and reduce costs. In this study, the environmental assessment of one battery pack (with a nominal capacity of 11.4 kWh able to be used for about 140,000 km of driving) is carried out by using the Life Cycle Assessment methodology consistent with ISO 14040. The system boundaries are the battery production, the operation phase and recycling at the end of life, including the recovery of various material fractions. The composite cathode technology examined besides a good compromise between the higher and the lower performance of NMC and LMO cathodes, can present good environmental performances. The results of the analysis show that the manufacturing phase is relevant to all assessed impact categories (contribution higher than 60%). With regard to electricity losses due to battery efficiency and battery transport, the contribution to the use phase impact of battery efficiency is larger than that of battery transport. Recycling the battery pack contributes less than 11% to all of the assessed impact categories, with the exception of freshwater ecotoxicity (60% of the life cycle impact). The environmental credits related to the recovery of valuable materials (e.g. cobalt and nickel sulphates) and other metal fractions (e.g. aluminium and steel) are particularly relevant to impact categories such as marine eutrophication, human toxicity and abiotic resource depletion. The main innovations of this article are that (1) it presents the first bill of materials of a lithium-ion battery cell for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with a composite cathode active material; (2) it describes one of the first applications of the life cycle assessment to a lithium-ion battery pack for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles with a composite cathode active material with the aim of identifying the “hot spots” of this technology and providing useful information to battery manufacturers on potentially improving its environmental sustainability; (3) it evaluates the impacts associated with the use phase based on primary data about the battery pack's lifetime, in terms of kilometres driven; and (4) it models the end-of-life phase of the battery components through processes specifically created for or adapted to the case study.

The increasing use of renewable energy technologies for electricity generation in buildings will require a growing number of battery energy storage systems (BESS) to enhance the reliability of electricity supply. The increasing number of retired electric vehicle (EV) batteries, expected from the automotive sector, can match this demand as EV batteries can be used as BESS, considering that they have about 80% of their original energy capacity. In this context, the study aims at examining the system, consisting of a BESS made by retired Li-ion EV batteries, a photovoltaic plant (20 kW) and the electricity grid, that provides the electricity required by an existing nearly net zero residential building (25.000 kWh/year). The goal is to identify the optimal BESS size, expressed as energy capacity, for load match optimization and environmental impacts in a life cycle perspective. A BESS of around 46 kWh of energy capacity allows achieving significant results in terms of load match increase and environmental sustainability. The study includes an environmental assessment combining the load match analysis and the life cycle approach. It highlights the potential synergy inspired to the principles of the circular economy and of the industrial symbiosis, between the building and the automotive sector.

Food production is recognised as one of the major drivers for global environmental pressure. In the last years, changes in consumption models result in an increasing population consuming food out of home that pose the catering service sector at the centre of the European Union policies aimed at improving the environmental sustainability of the food sector. In this framework, better technical knowledge on the environmental impacts of catering service is essential in order to identify potential actions towards a more sustainable food sector. This article presents an environmental assessment of a school catering service operating in Italy and delivering approximately 2,518,128 meals per year. Starting from primary data on the amount of each food consumed in the catering service examined, we perform an environmental analysis of an equivalent meal ready to be consumed in the schools canteens by using the Life Cycle Assessment methodology consistent with ISO 14040 standard. The system boundaries include food and tableware production, food transport, food storage and cooking and waste treatment. Due to a lack of primary data tableware production, food storage, cooking and waste treatment are modelled using literature data or models. The results of the analysis show that the food production phase is relevant to almost all assessed impact categories (contribution higher than 65%). The exception is represented by photochemical oxidation impact categories in which the larger impact is linked to the transportation phase. The environmental impacts associated to the tableware production, food storage and cooking are relevant to global warming and global energy requirement (contributions higher than 7%). The scenario analysis of potential actions aimed at reducing the environmental impacts of the catering service shows that, to obtain a more sustainable food sector, strategies must be implemented along the entire food supply chain and considering a wide range of environmental impact categories.

Hindering global warming and achieving a more competitive, secure and sustainable energy sector are some of the most relevant goals of the 2030 Framework for climate and energy of the European Union. European countries have to identify and implement strategies for contributing to these ambitious goals. In this context, the authors carried out a scenario analysis on the Sicilian electricity mix in order to estimate the life cycle energy and environmental benefits of the increase of the use of renewable energy technologies for electricity production, and the potential contribution of Sicily in the achievement of the European energy and environmental targets. In detail, the authors identified two electricity generation scenarios for 2030 starting from the Sicilian electricity mix in 2014, performed assumptions on the forecasted electricity demand and assessed the potential of renewable energy sources exploitation and the technical, political, social, and environmental constraints. Then, they applied the Life Cycle Assessment methodology to assess the eco-profiles of the identified electricity generation mixes and compared them with the eco-profile of electricity produced in 2014. The results of the comparison showed a reduction of most of the 16 examined environmental impact categories, except for those related to human toxicity, particulate matter, ionizing radiation and resource depletion.

Over the last 15 years, photovoltaics (PV) in Vietnam has experienced development. The increased installed capacity of PV requires more land for installation sites as well as for manufacturing the plants’ component and waste treatment during the plants’ decommissioning. As a developing country, in which more than 80% of the population’s livelihood depends on agriculture, there are concerns about the competition of land for agriculture and solar development. This paper estimates the life-cycle land-use requirement for PV development in Vietnam, to provide the scientific-based evidence for policy makers on the quantity of land required, so that the land budget can be suitably allocated. The direct land-use requirement for PV ranges from 3.7 to 6.7 m2 MWh−1 year, and the total fenced area is 7.18 to 8.16 m2 MWh−1 year. Regarding the life-cycle land use, the land occupation is 241.85 m2a and land transformation is 16.17 m2 per MWh. Most of the required land area is for the installation of the PV infrastructure, while the indirect land use of the background process is inconsiderable.

After their first use in electric vehicles (EVs), the residual capacity of traction batteries can make them valuable in other applications. Although reusing EV batteries remains an undeveloped market, second-use applications of EV batteries are in line with circular economy principles and the waste management hierarchy. Although substantial environmental benefits are expected from reusing traction batteries, further efforts are needed in data collection, modelling the life-cycle stages and calculating impact indicators to propose a harmonized and adapted life-cycle assessment (LCA) method. To properly assess the environmental benefits and drawbacks of using repurposed EV batteries in second-use applications, in this article an adapted LCA is proposed based on the comparison of different scenarios from a life-cycle perspective. The key issues for the selected life-cycle stages and the aspects and parameters to be assessed in the analysis are identified and discussed for each stage, including manufacturing, repurposing, reusing and recycling. The proposed method is applied to a specific case study concerning the use of repurposed batteries to increase photovoltaic (PV) self-consumption in a given dwelling. Primary data on the dwelling’s energy requirements and PV production were used to properly assess the energy flows in this specific repurposed scenario: both the literature search performed and the results obtained highlighted the relevance of modelling the system energy using real data, combining the characteristics of both the battery and its application. The LCA results confirmed that the environmental benefits of adopting repurposed batteries to increase PV self-consumption in a house occur under specific conditions and that the benefits are more or less considerable depending on the impact category assessed. Higher environmental benefits refer to impact categories dominated by the manufacturing and repurposing stages. Some of the most relevant parameters (e.g. residual capacity and allocation factor) were tested in a sensitivity analysis. The method can be used in other repurposing application cases if parameters for these cases can be determined by experimental tests, modelling or extracting data from the literature.

According to recent literature and technical analyses, used batteries from electric vehicles can still be used, before the final treatment at the end-of-life, in stationary applications that are usually less stressing than the automotive ones. In this framework, a circular economy inspired pathway is emerging between the building and the transportation sector, generally called “second life” of batteries. Used batteries from electric vehicles can be re-used in residential buildings together with renewable electricity generation technologies to improve the matching between the highly variable electricity generation from renewables and the electricity demand in buildings. This study aims to contribute to the assessment of the environmental sustainability of using battery storage systems for stationary applications made of used batteries in substitution of new batteries in a life cycle perspective. The analysis is performed considering an expanded circular system that includes both the functions provided in buildings (provide the electricity required in a residential building for a specific time frame) and in the transportation sector (provide electricity needed for driving until the battery capacity reached about 80% of the rated capacity). The study shows that reusing used batteries as stationary storage systems in residential buildings can enhance the overall environmental sustainability of the two systems considered. In particular, the environmental impacts decrease of a percentage ranging from around -4% (in cumulative energy demand) to -17% (in abiotic depletion potential). The examined strategy can contribute to initiate the transition towards a circular and low-carbon economy.