Life Cycle Environmental Impacts of Electricity Production by Solarthermal Power Plants in Spain

Abstract

The objectives of the analysis reported in this paper are to evaluate the environmental impacts of the electricity produced in a 17MW solar thermal plant with central tower technology and a 50MW solar thermal plant with parabolic trough technology, to identify the opportunities to improve the systems in order to reduce their environmental impacts, and to evaluate the environmental impact resulting from compliance with the solar thermal power objectives in Spain. The methodology chosen is the life cycle assessment (LCA), described in the international standard series ISO 14040-43. The functional unit has been defined as the production of 1kWh of electricity. Energy use needed to construct, operate, and dismantle the power plants is estimated. These results are used to calculate the “energy payback time” of these technologies. Results were around 1yr for both power plants. Environmental impacts analyzed include the global warming impacts along the whole life cycle of the power plants, which were around 200g∕kWh generated. Finally, the environmental impacts associated with the compliance of the solar thermal power objectives in Spain were computed. Those figures were then used to estimate the avoided environmental impacts including the potential CO2 emission savings that could be accomplished by these promotion policies. These savings amounted for 634kt of CO2 equiv./yr.

A Framework for Integrated Sustainability Assessment to support decision making. Application to solar thermal and natural gas combined cycle electricity production in Mexico

“…Furthermore, it could be especially useful when comparing effects of different alternatives in order to finally select the best project in a sustainability point of view. Environmental results are consistent with the reviewed studies: (Lechón et al 2008;De la Rúa Lope 2009;Burkhardt et al 2011Burkhardt et al , 2012Corona et al 2016 …”

Life cycle assessment of concentrated solar power (CSP) and the influence of hybridising with natural gas

“…LCA methodology is an appropriate way to evaluate the environmental performance of renewable technologies, as have been proven in scientific literature (Davidsson et al, 2012;Emmenegger et al, 2012;Suwanit and Gheewala, 2011) The environmental performance of CSP plants based on parabolic through technology has been investigated by various authors using Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) methodology (Weinrebe et al 1998;Lechon et al 2008;Piemonte et al 2011;Burkhardt et al 2011 andOró et al, 2012). The results show significant discrepancies in the impacts estimated for different environmental categories, which has been associated with various issues like: the scale and geographical location of the installations, characteristics of the plant and TES, and the LCA methodology employed in the calculations (CML, Eco-Indicator, ReCiPe).…”

Towards real energy economics: Energy policy driven by life-cycle carbon emission

“…For example, biomass power decreases from a carbon-neutral growth rate of 50% in 2010 to only 4% in 2050. A more extreme example involves solar thermal power: because of its relatively high variable emissions as defined by Lechon et al (2008), it transitions from mitigating carbon in 2010 to being a net carbon producer in 2037. The carbon neutral growth rate is not initially the limiting factor on growth of any AETs, as seen in Table 3.…”