Abstract
The goal of this study was to conduct a comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) for large onshore wind turbines in the US, including all phases of the turbine’s life cycle separately (materials acquisition, manufacturing, transportation, installation, operation and maintenance, and end of life) and multiple impact categories (environmental, human health, resource consumption). Particular attention was given to make the installation and maintenance phases complete and transparent. The contribution of this study is that it is the first comprehensive LCA for large wind turbines in the US, where different transport distances (including overseas transport of turbine parts), truck emission standards, mixes of electricity sources, and waste disposal practices will affect impacts, compared to those conducted for other countries. It is also the first comprehensive LCA to examine separately all 6 phases of the turbine’s life cycle (in particular separating manufacturing from raw material acquisition/installation) and the first to evaluate turbine lifespan as a sensitivity parameter. The study was conducted for 200 Gamesa 2-MW wind turbines located near Abilene, Texas. SimaPro8 software was used for modeling, according to ISO 14040 standards. The manufacturing phase contributed the greatest overall impacts, which was consistent with other studies; hence, alternative methods of manufacturing should be explored to reduce impacts. Installation, transportation, maintenance, and raw materials acquisition ranked second through fifth, respectively. Consistent with other studies, end-of-life ranked last, which means that the disposal method (landfilling or combustion) for turbine parts which are not recycled makes little difference in terms of the overall turbine life cycle.
Graphical abstract
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abeliotis K, Pactiti D (2014) Assessment of the environmental impacts of a wind farm in central Greece during its life cycle. Int J Renew Energy Res 4(3):580–585
American Wind Energy Association (2017) US wind industry annual market report: executive summary. https://www.awea.org/AnnualMarketReport.aspx?ItemNumber=11563&RDtoken=34167&userID=. Accessed May 2018
Ardente F, Beccali M, Cellura M, Lo Brano V (2008) Energy performances and life cycle assessment of an Italian wind farm. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 12:200–217
Arvesen A, Hertwich E (2012) Assessing the life cycle environmental impacts of wind power: a review of present knowledge and research needs. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 16(8):5994–6006
Berndt ML (2015) Influence of concrete mix design on CO2 emissions for large wind turbine foundations. Renew Energy 83:608–614
Chataignere A, Boulch D (2003) Wind turbine (WT) systems, ECLIPSE—environmental and ecological life cycle inventories for present and future power systems in Europe. Final Report. https://www.dlr.de/tt/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-2885/4422_read-6558/
Chen GQ, Yang Q, Zhao YH (2011) Renewability of wind power in China: a case study of nonrenewable energy cost and greenhouse gas emission by a plant in Guangxi. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 15:2322–2329
Cherubini F, Bargigli S, Ulgiati S (2009) Life cycle assessment (LCA) of waste management strategies: landfilling, sorting plant and incineration. Energy 34:2116–2123
Crawford RH. Life-cycle energy analysis of wind turbines—an assessment of the effect of size on energy yield. WIT transactions on ecology and the environment, vol 105, © 2007. WIT Press. www.witpress.com, ISSN 1743-3541 (on-line) pp 155–164
D’Souza N, Gbegbaje-Das E, Shonfield P (2011) Life cycle assessment of electricity production from a Vestas V112 turbine wind plant. Denmark, Copenhagen
Davidsson S, Höök M, Wall G (2012) A review of life cycle assessments on wind energy systems. Int J Life Cycle Assess 17:729–742. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-012-0397-8
DieselNET (2018) Emission standards: summary of worldwide engine and vehicle emission standards. https://www.dieselnet.com/standards/. Accessed 20 Dec 2018
Elsan Engineering A/S (2004) Life cycle assessment of offshore and onshore sited wind farms. Doc. no. 200128
European Environment Agency (1998) Life cycle assessment: a guide to approaches and information sources (environmental issues). European Communities, ISBN: 9789291670796
Gagnon L, Belanger C, Uchiyama Y (2002) Life-cycle assessment of electricity generation options: the status of research in year 2001. Energy Policy 30(14):1267–1278
Gamesa Corp (2013) The wind turbine manufacturer in Spain. http://www.gamesacorp.com/en/cargarAplicacionPresenciaGlobal.do?tipo=P. Accessed 17 Sept 2016
Garrett P, Rønde K (2013) Life cycle assessment of wind power: comprehensive results from a state-of-the-art approach. Int J Life Cycle Assess 18:37–48. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11367-012-0445-4
Golbabaei F, Khadem M (2015) Air pollution in welding processes—assessment and control methods. Curr Air Qual Issues 1:1. https://doi.org/10.5772/59793
Guezuraga B, Zauner R, Pölz W (2012) Life cycle assessment of two different 2 MW class wind turbines. Renew Energy 37:37–44
International Standards Organization, ISO 14040, 14044 (2006) Environmental management-life cycle assessment: principles and framework, requirements and guidelines, ICS 13.020.10; 13.020.60
Ji S, Chen B (2016) LCA-based carbon footprint of a typical wind farm in China. Energy Procedia 88:250–256
Jungbluth N, Bauer C, Dones R, Frischknecht R (2005) Life cycle assessment for emerging technologies: case studies for photovoltaic and wind power. Int J Life Cycle Assess 10(1):24–34
Kumar I, Tyner WE, Sinha KC (2016) Input–output life cycle environmental assessment of greenhouse gas emissions from utility scale wind energy in the United States. Energy Policy 89:294–301
Lenzen M, Dey C (2000) Truncation error in embodied energy analysis of basic iron and steel products. Energy 25:577–585
Leung DYC, Yang Y (2012) Wind energy development and its environmental impact: a review. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 16:1031–1039
Locogen. Locogen wind turbine construction timelapse. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBbBh5xZ1gQ. Accessed Dec 2018
Martínez E, Sanz F, Pellegrini S, Jiménez E, Blanco J (2009) Life cycle assessment of a multi-megawatt wind turbine. Renew Energy 34:667–673
Martínez E, Blanco J, Jimenez E, Saenz-Díez JC, Sanz Martinez F (2015) Comparative evaluation of life cycle impact assessment software tools through a wind turbine case study. Renew Energy 74:237–246
Oebels KB, Pacca S (2013) Life cycle assessment of a non-shore wind farm located at the north eastern coast of Brazil. Renew Energy 53:60–70
Ozoemena M, Cheung WM, Hasan R (2018) Comparative LCA of technology improvement opportunities for a 1.5-MW wind turbine in the context of an onshore wind farm. Clean Technol Environ Policy 20:173–190
PRé Sustainability (2015) SimaPro database manual: methods library. https://www.pre-sustainability.com/download/DatabaseManualMethods.pdf. Accessed 21 July 2016
PRé Sustainability (2016) SimaPro. www.pre-sustainability.com/simapro. Accessed 26 July 2016
Proops JLR, Gay PW, Speck S, Schroder T (1996) The lifetime pollution implications of various types of electricity generation. Energy Policy 24(3):229–237
Raadal HL, Gagnonb L, Modahla IS, Hanssenaet OJ (2011) Life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from the generation of wind and hydro power. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 15:3417–3422
Rajaei M, Tinjum JM (2013) Life cycle assessment of energy balance and emissions of a wind energy plant. Geotech Geol Eng 31:1663–1670. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10706-013-9637-3
Royal Academy of Engineering, UK. http://www.raeng.org.uk/publications/other/23-wind-turbine. Accessed 2 Sept 2016
Rule B, Worth ZJ, Boyle CA (2009) Comparison of life cycle carbon dioxide emissions and embodied energy in four renewable electricity generation technologies in New Zealand. Environ Sci Technol 43:6406–6413
Schleisner L (2000) Life cycle assessment of a wind farm and related externalities. Renew Energy 20:279–288
Simons PJ, Cheung WM (2016) Development of a quantitative analysis system for greener and economically sustainable wind farms. J Clean Prod 133:886–898. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.06.0300959-6526
Stanek W, Mendecka B, Lombardi L, Simla T (2018) Environmental assessment of wind turbine systems based on thermo-ecological cost. Energy 160:341–348
Tremeac B, Meunier F (2009) Life cycle analysis of 4.5 MW and 250 W wind turbines. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 13:2104–2110
Turconi R, O’Dwyer C, Flynn D, Astrup T (2014) Emissions from cycling of thermal power plants in electricity systems with high penetration of wind power: life cycle assessment for Ireland. Appl Energy 131:1–8
Wagner HJ, Pick E (2004) Energy yield ratio and cumulative energy demand for wind energy converters. Energy 29:2289–2295
Wang Sh, Si Wang (2015) Impacts of wind energy on environment: a review. Renew Sustain Energy Rev 49:437–443
White S (2006) Net energy payback and CO2 emissions from three midwestern wind farms: an update. Nat Resour Res 15(4):271–281. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11053-007-9024-y
Widder S, Butner R, Elliott M, Freeman C (2011) Sustainability assessment of coal-fired power plants with carbon capture and storage. US Department of Energy, Pacific Northwest National Lab (PNNL)-20933
Worrell WA, Vesilind PA, Ludwig C (2016) Solid waste engineering: a global perspective, 3rd edn. Cengage Learning, Stamford
Zhang TW (2011) Producer-focused life cycle assessment of thin-film silicon photovoltaic systems. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The author declares that they have no conflict of interest.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Alsaleh, A., Sattler, M. Comprehensive life cycle assessment of large wind turbines in the US. Clean Techn Environ Policy 21, 887–903 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-019-01678-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-019-01678-0