Life cycle assessment of the wind turbines installed in Spain until 2008

Lahuerta, Francisco
CENER (Renewable Energy National Centre) C/ Ciudad de la Innovacin 7, C.P.: 31621 - Sarriguren Spain (+34) 948 25 28 00 - flahuerta@cener.com

Saenz, Ernesto
CENER (Renewable Energy National Centre) C/ Ciudad de la Innovacin 7, C.P.: 31621 - Sarriguren Spain (+34) 948 25 28 00 - esaenz@cener.com

ABSTRACT
Although wind power generation systems are currently one of the fastest growing industries, the environmental impacts and decommission phase of the wind turbines components is still a matter of controversy. The primary wind turbine components are mainly manufactured with steel, aluminium, copper, concrete and reinforced plastics (composites). Most of these materials are recycled at the end of the wind turbine's service life. However, there are important issues related with the handling of composites waste considering new environmental regulations. In Spain, the installed wind power was around 15.145 MW until 2008. Considering that the service life of a wind turbine is approximately twenty years, this means that Spain faced a composite waste of 151.450 t that would have to be decommissioned in the following years. Here a life cycle analysis (LCA) on wind turbines installed in Spain until 2008 is presented, evaluating different waste scenarios for their composite parts (rotor and nacelle) in order to determine their environmental impact and effect on the energy payback of the whole system. The study concludes that the energy payback can vary up to 30% and environmental impacts, such as marine and fresh water ecotoxicity amongst others, can vary up to a 40%. Moreover, the LCA shows that the main environmental impact contributors during the manufacturing process are the components which require steel, copper and electronic parts. Based on the CO2 intensity and the energy payback results of the LCA global model, wind energy was compared with other renewable energy systems and those of conventional power generation systems. The study shows that wind energy is one of the best ways to mitigate climate change in comparison with other power generation systems, which agrees with the wind energy supporting policies of the last decades.

reinforced plastics, renewable energy, electricity generation, CML method.

1 INTRODUCTION
The wind industry has been growing at an ever-increasing rate since the early 1990s, with a total capacity of 19.149 MW installed at the end of 2009 and a 12,11% share of the annual electricity demand [1]. Over the last decade there have been some controversies about the government support to the wind sector. However, the wind energy sector has demonstrated its economical feasibility over the years with a cumulative contribution to the GDP of 16.150 million euros until the end of 2009 [1]. Besides economical criteria, it is also important to assess the environmental impacts that the development of wind energy sector brings. In that respect the life cycle analysis (LCA) is a tool to assess the environmental impacts and compare system over others. Currently, most of the wind turbines installed in Spain over the last twenty years are still in operation. Considering that the average wind turbine life span is 20 years, the replacement and dismantling of the existing turbines with new models of wind turbines shall be done in the forthcoming years. The technologies or methods chosen for the waste disposal of the old machines, and in particular the components manufactured with composite materials (mainly blades and nacelles), can change the overall life cycle system results on the LCA of them [2] by modifying the environmental impacts. In fact, the disposal methods for composite materials, which are a matter of controversy today, will be more important in the following years due to an increase in the volumes of waste to manage and on more restrictive regulations [3]. Previous LCAs [2, 4-17] were carried out on individual wind turbines with different purposes. Mutz [2] compares three different scenarios of waste disposal management for a Nordex N60 turbine installed in Gotland, concluding that composite materials shall be recycled. Batumbya [4], Martnez [5, 6], Vestas [7, 8] and Lenzena [9, 10] evaluates a single wind turbines installed in particular positions, where the environmental impacts, the evaluation of the waste scenarios or

KEYWORDS
life cycle analysis, life cycle assessment, LCA, wind turbine, wind energy farms, composite,

the model sensitivity with the variation of different model parameters are a matter of study. Crawford [11] and Tremeac [12] demonstrated that both the size of the turbine and the method of calculation of the produced energy on a particular location can generate wide variations in the final LCA results. In particular, Schleisner [13] compared the LCA of a wind farm installed onshore to an off-shore wind farm. He concluded that external aspects to the wind turbines manufacturing process such as transportation, maintenance and civil works heavily impact on the LCA final result. A wide range of LCAs studies on wind energy were analyzed in Varun [14] and Lund [15] reviews, in which ranges for energy intensities between 0,013 and 0,79 kW.hin/kW.hout are refer. Moreover, these reviews provided data for environmental intensities such as: CO2 from 3 to 46,4 grCO2eq/kW.hout, acidification from 0,0194 to 0,1152 grSO2eq/kW.hout or eutrophication from 0,0057 to 0,05 grPO4eq/kW.hout. The aim of this work is to compare four different composites waste disposal scenarios for all wind turbines installed in continental Spain until early 2008, and to assess the environmental impact posed by the choice of a waste disposal management method for composite materials through the LCA tool. Due to the energy produced by the wind turbines included in this study were obtained using two different methods, the first one based on bibliographic data, and the second one by an empirical forecast based on the data from wind energy electricity production between 1996 and 2008 available from REE (Spanish electrical network). Thus, a comparison between both modelling systems was presented through the energy balance. Finally, the wind energy environmental impact and its energy balance were compared to other energy technologies to assess their environmental impact and energy return.

rotor weight, rotor diameter and type of composite material for the rotors blades (epoxy or polyester resins, glass or carbon fibre). The initial park operation date was taken from the BOE (Official state gazette) and these dates were assumed as the starting year of activity for each wind turbine. Considering an average wind turbine lifespan of 20 years, the wind turbine inventory allowed to forecast the material waste expected for the forthcoming years. Wind farms re-powering or substitution of damaged blades could not be included. The 15.721 units of installed wind turbines will produce 10.138.915 t of waste (Table 2), which includes 151.450 t that will be composite material waste (97% from blades and 3% from nacelles). The forecast for composite waste to be managed per year is shown in Fig. 1. A strong increase on the composite waste is expected from 2019.
35.000 30.000 25.000 20.000
11.909 9.279

21.895

21.329

Waste forecast for wind turbines composite parts (nacelle & blades), in ton Total (since 1998): 151.450 t

26.487

26.981

15.000
4.112 5.178

10.000
878 368 486 812

5.000 0
14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

11.245

24

25

26

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

20

Fig. 1: Forecast for composite waste of wind turbines installed in Spain until 2008

2.2

LIFE CYCLE ANALYSIS, LCA

2 METHODOLOGY
The methodology includes two major tasks: to prepare a wind turbines inventory on wind turbines installed in Spain until 2008 and to conduct the LCA based on the wind turbine inventory.

2.1

WIND 2008

TURBINES

INVENTORY

UNTIL

The wind turbines inventory on machines installed in Spain until 2008 is based on AEE [19] data. In this study, each wind turbine is correlated with the wind turbine model manufacturer data. Thus, various characteristics of each model were extracted from their technical brochures: weight and dimensions of the nacelle, tower dimensions,

The LCA is based on CML 2 baseline v2.04 (CML 2007) methodology with normalization "World 1990" in order to avoid subjectivity [18]. The task sequences were: Definition of the questions that the LCA have to answer Process flow definition System boundaries definition Impact assessment method definition LCI (life cycle inventory) data collection Waste disposal scenarios definition LCA construction using SimaPro V7.18 software LCA sensitivity analysis Model validation after the comparison to literature data LCA interpretation Energy balance study and environmental impacts comparison between scenarios. The LCA includes the wind turbines installed in Spain until early 2008. The major questions that LCA answers are the following:

20

27

11.260

 What is the environmental impact of wind turbines installed in Spain until 2008 based on the described life cycle model? Comparison of the environmental impact cause by four different composite waste disposal scenarios for wind turbines composites. Four different technologies were evaluated: landfill, incineration, recycling into reinforced PET pellets (bibliographical method [2]) and recycling FIDIMA (method developed by FIDIMA Technological Center, Spain). Comparison between environmental impact of wind turbines with other energy production technologies.

In order to reduce the complexity of the inventory data collection, data was compiled to an attainable level enough to answer the questions of the study, which is a common practice in the bibliography [20]. The validity of cutting criteria and assumptions were supported by the sensitivity analysis.
Energy Material manufacturing Materials Emissions

Transport

2.2.1

Functional unit
Components manufacturing Maintenance Transport Transport Wind turbine assembly & installation

Due to the main objective of a wind turbine is to generate electricity, 1GWh of produced energy was taken as the functional unit. For the LCA study, the forecast of the total electric energy to be produced by the studied wind turbines along their life span was 567.569 GW.h.

2.2.2

System boundaries

The LCA boundaries system can be defined in terms of nature, geography and time. In Fig. 2, the process flow chart for a single wind turbine includes the following stages: production of raw materials, component manufacturing, assembly & installation and dismantling of the wind turbine. These stages are limit by the boundary system for a single unit. Based on each wind turbine single unit flow chart, the main LCA flow chart is constructed adding input flows (energy and materials) and outputs flows (emissions and produced energy) for each single unit system along its service time (see Fig. 3). Due to the inventory only includes units installed in Spain, the LCA geographical boundary were considered mainland Spain, without considering units installed in the Canary and Balear Islands because of the intrinsic differences in process, transport and waste management between a continental and non continental territory. The model of Spanish energy mix (electricity mix / kWh / EN dated 2007 Ecoivent database) was used as energy source and the decommissioning phase was assumed to be done locally. The time range for the study included all wind turbine installed in mainland Spain between 1978 to early 2008. Despite the life span of a wind turbine was estimated in 20 years, it was not considered the possible repowering or replacement of the turbines after their decommission.

Operation

Transport

Dismantle Recycling Landfill Incineration Energy Emissions Avoid products Wind 1GW.h of electricity

System boundary for a single wind turbine LCA

Fig. 2: Flow chart for a single wind turbine LCA

2.2.3

Key assumptions

Due to practical limitations for the realization of this LCA, the following assumptions or hypotheses were used: In cases where no sub-components or parts data was found, similar data were taken from the available databases. The electricity mix data was obtained from SimaPro databases. The average wind turbine life span was 20 years. The studied wind turbines produced electricity were obtained from REE [21-29]. Regarding operation and maintenance, it was considered that for every two wind turbines

one will require substitution of the three blades, the drive train and the generator [30]. Therefore the required flows of materials, energy and transport for these subcomponents were increased by a 1,5 factor. The time evolution of the energetic mix, the process efficiency and the changes on the materials model along the period of time in study between 1980 and 2028 were not taken into account. The work and materials required to connect each wind farm to the electrical network were not considered because of the required resources were considered similar no matter on the energy source [4].

2.3.1

Data collection

A wind turbine consists of different type of elements: electronic, mechanical and electrical. In order to group and to simplify the LCI (see Table 2), each wind turbine were divided in four main components (rotor, nacelle, tower, foundations and others) and each component in its main subcomponents. The material and processes type ratio assigned for each subcomponent were considered the same for all the cases. The materials, ratios and processes for each subcomponent are shown in Table 1.

2.2.4

Allocation, impact categories and impact assessment method

Aggregation of the inputs and outputs required for each wind turbine LCA included in the global LCA study time frame Wind turbine|i=1 LCA i=1 Wind turbine|i=2 LCA i=2 (.....)

Wind 1GWh of electricity

CML 2 baseline V2.04 (CML 2007) with normalisation World 1990 was used in this study. This method has been widely applied for several wind energy LCAs [2, 31, 32] with the purpose of assessing the potential environmental impacts. According with the bibliography [2, 4-8, 12] the impacts categories considered in this work were: abiotic depletion (units kgSb eq), acidification 3(units g SO2 eq), eutrophication (units gPO 4 eq o gPO4 eq), global warming GWP100 (units kgCO2 eq), ozone layer depletion ODP (units kgCFC-11), human toxicity (units kg1,4-dichlorobenzene eq or kg1,4-DB eq), fresh water aquatic ecotoxicity (units kg1,4-DB eq), marine aquatic ecotoxicity (units kg1,4-DB eq), terrestrial ecotoxicity (units kg1,4-DB eq) and photochemical oxidation (units kgethylene eq or kgC2H4 eq). The energy return assessment was carried out calculating the cumulative energy demand (CED) in order to evaluate the total direct and indirect amount of energy consumed throughout the life cycle (see Table 8).

i =1... N

Energy

i =1... N

Materials
Emissions

i =1... N

Wind turbine|i=N LCA i=N 1980 First wind turbine installation date included in the LCA 1990 2007 Last wind turbine installation date included in the LCA 2027 Year Last wind turbine dismantling date included in the LCA

2.3

LIFE CYCLE INVENTORY ANALYSIS, LCI

LCA system boundary

Since this study considers wind turbines installed in Spain until early 2008, it was necessary to consider the contributions of materials and processes of each wind turbine life cycle based on the process flow shown in Fig. 2. Therefore, according to the literature [33, 34] the materials, processes, energy and emissions flows that constitute each wind turbine life cycle inventory were accumulated, in such way that the final life cycle comprises the sum of materials, processes and emissions require by each wind turbine. Hence, the system output flows were the total emissions and produced energy by all wind turbines set as is shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3: LCA flow chart showing the wind turbines considered in the study Only for the rotor, a detailed study on blades weight and their materials were performed according to each wind turbine model. This was because blades have 95% of the composite material of the wind turbine, thus the rotor is the main impact factor in the comparison between waste scenarios. Based on the bibliography and statistical analysis of experimental data, the mass of wind turbine subcomponents (shown in Table 1) was calculated according the equations shown in Table 3.

Component Rotor

Subcomponent 3 blades (GF+CF+epoxy) 3 blades (GF+epoxy) 3 blades (GF+ vinylester) Hub Cone

Material Carbon fibre Glass fibre Epoxy Glass fibre Epoxy Glass fibre Vinylester Cast iron Glass fibre Vinylester Copper Steel Silica Steel Copper Aluminium Steel Aluminium Copper Vinylester Glass fibre Steel Electronics Oil Lightning, Cu Concrete Iron -

Nacelle

Generator 12,4% nacelle weight base on [4, 37] Drive train 33,5% nacelle weight base on [4, 37] Nacelle others 54,1% nacelle weight base on [4, 37]

Tower Others

Tower in tower or nacelle

Foundation Energy Transport

Subcomponent weight fraction (%) 20 40 40 60 40 60 40 100 60 40 34 63 3 98 1 1 85 8 4 1 2 100 100 100 100 97 3 -

References for weight fraction [4, 7, 8] [4, 7, 8] [4, 7, 8] [4, 7, 8] [4, 7, 8] [4, 7, 8] [4, 7, 8] [6] [6] [6] [4, 7, 8] [4, 7, 8] [4, 7, 8] [4, 7, 8] [4, 7, 8] [4, 7, 8] [4, 7, 8] [4, 7, 8] [4, 7, 8] [6] [6] -

Uncertainty (%) 8 8 8 8 8 8 8 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 15 5 15 15 15 5 5 25 25

Uncertainty model Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform Uniform

Table 1: Materials distribution & LCI uncertainties by component and subcomponent

Compo nent Rotor Sub compo nent Material Weight Process Subcomponent Maintenance TransTransport Weigth Energy port units (MW.h) (t) (MW.h) (t.km) (t.km) 23.799 42.227 47.163 151.148 1.103 75.574 552 71106 142106 5.456 15.721 119.105 No O&M 15.721 10.294 No O&M 406.130 166106 832.609 332106 Energy

(t) (t) -3 Epoxy 47.597 plant/RER S blades Glass fibre 84.454 plant/RER S Glass fibre 2.206 plant/RER S Carbon fibre 1.103 plant/RER S Vinylester 10.912 plant/RER S Hub Cast iron 138.955 plant/RER S Cone Glass fibre 2.016 plant/RER S Vinylester 1.344 plant/RER S Nacelle Gene- Copper 24.386 storage/RER S rator Steel 45.186 plant/RER S Silica 2.152 MG silicon plant/NO S Drive Steel 189.896 plant/RER S train Copper 1.938 storage/RER S Aluminium 1.938 prod. mix plant/RER S Other Steel 265.987 plant/RER S Aluminium 25.034 prod. mix plant/RER S Copper 12.517 storage/RER S Vynilester 3.755 plant/RER S Glass fibre 5.633 plant/RER S Tower Steel 1.202.833 plant/RER S Other 89.165 control units /RER S in tower Electronics Oil 13.743 lubricating oil /RER S or nacelle Lightning, Cu 583 storage/RER S Foundation Concrete 7.937.220 Concrete (reinforced) I Total 10.138.915

12.193 15.721 812.261 22.593 1.076 94.948 15.721 1.665.219 969 969

15.721 1.008.389

No O&M

15.721 435.811 No O&M 15.721 Included No O&M 15.721 in the 13.743 15.721 process No O&M 15.721 56.053

589106 N/A 476106

4.258.281 219.649 1.353.617 238106 1.778106

Table 2: Wind turbines inventory per component and subcomponent, LCI. Operation and maintenance, O&M Hence, the operation of a wind turbine requires virtually no resources; the small amount of power consumed during operation was not taken into account. During maintenance of the wind turbines, energy and materials were consumed as

resources. While energy consumption comes mainly from transportation and maintenance operations, materials consumption was related with the damaged parts substitution. According with NeoEnergy [30] data, is has been considered that along the lifetime of the turbines, every two wind turbines is required the replacement of three rotor blades, one gearbox and one generator. In addition, it was considered that due to maintenance reasons a full oil change for each wind turbine was required during its life span [2].
Subcomponent mass equations Ref. [35] [35]

mass hub (kg ) = 0,24 Drotor (m)

2 , 58

mass cone (kg ) = 3,875 Drotor (m)

mass nacelle (kg ) = 13,1 Drotor (m) 1,9542
when

Drotor < 80m

[36]

mass nacelle (kg ) = 0,3 Drotor (m) 2,8212

when

Drotor 80m

[36]

mass tower (kg ) = 8.695,53 1,0367 Drotor ( m )

CENER CENER [2,7] [7] CENER

mass foundations (t ) = 128,91 1,0236 Drotor ( m )

masselectronics (kg ) = 102,8 Drotor (m) mass oil (kg ) = 15,85 D rotor (m)
masslightning (kg ) = 0,672 Drotor (m)

Table 3: Subcomponent mass equations Transport The "t.km" was assumed as the functional unit for transportation, and it represents the transport of one tonne of goods over one kilometre [5, 38]. The energy required for transportation of the subcomponents was estimated according the total mass of each subcomponent and the distance between the major wind turbine component production centre and the wind farms locations [39, 40]. For the transport modelling was assumed that 32 t trucks were used. The energy costs for civil works or for erection machinery were not considered. Moreover, the required transport resources derived from the subcomponents assembly or manufacturing of the electronics, oil and lightning cable were not considered. In the case of the foundations construction, it was assumed that all materials needed for construction were within a radius of less than 60 km. Produced electricity The total electricity produced by wind turbines set throughout their 20 years life span, was estimated in 567.569.311 MW.h (see Fig. 4),

which implies a load factor of 21%. The accumulated produced energy was based on the electrical wind energy production fed into the grid between 1996 and 2008 according with REE [2129] data. In the literature, it was found other method to forecast the energy production of a wind turbine, which is base on the prediction of wind distributions [2, 4 to 8]. Commonly, this method use load factors around 30% which is slightly more optimistic. Nevertheless, this method was not suitable to forecast the production of the wind turbines set considered in the study, due to the big number of turbines considered and their different locations. Waste scenarios Table 4 shows the four different waste disposal scenarios that have been considered. Each scenario differs from the others just in the composites materials waste management technology: 1 landfill, 2 incineration, 3 recycling and 4 recycling FIDIMA. While scenario 1 and 2 are the common scenarios at this moment, scenarios 3 and 4 might be consider in development. The main differences between scenario 3 and 4 are that, weather scenario 3 is base on bibliographical data over a theoretical scenario of recycling composites into reinforced PET pellets [2], scenario 4 is based on data of a recycling industrial pilot process developed by FIDMA. Non-composites materials disposal methods included in the LCI were modelled in the same way for the four waste disposal scenarios as is shown in Table 5. In the particular case of oil and electronics waste management, it was assumed the incineration as waste management technology [2], with heat avoided ratios of 31 MJ / kg [42] in the case of electronics and 41,8 MJ / kg [43] in the case of oil.
30000 25000
Installed power (MW)

Produced energy (GW.h)

Installed power capacity (MW) REE data, produced energy (GW.h) Produced energy forecast (GW.h)

35000 30000 25000 20000 15000 10000 5000 Year 0

20000 15000 10000 5000

0 1980

1990

2000

2010

2020

2030

Fig. 4: Installed power capacity & produced energy forecast for wind turbines.

3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The environmental impact caused by wind turbines installed in Spain until 2008 for each waste management scenario was based on the method "CML 2 baseline 2000 v2.04 / World ,

1990". According to the LCA results shown in Fig. 6 and Table 7, the wind turbine set life cycle processes have potential impact on all the investigated categories. However, the extent of the different impact contributions varies (see Fig. 6), the major impact categories were on fresh water and marine ecotoxicity, abiotic depletion, acidification and terrestrial ecotoxicity. In particular, as it is shown on the impact categories process contribution chart in Fig. 7, the main emissions sources are related to subcomponents that required steel, copper and electronics subcomponents production.
Composite material disposal method Waste scenario 1 Landfill

Process

Ref.

Disposal, building, [5-7, PE/PP products, 13,41] to final disposal/CH S Disposal, PET, Waste [2, 4, Incineration 0.2% water, to municipal scenario 2 8,] incineration/CH S Waste Recycling Recycling [2] scenario 3 composites pellets Waste Recycling Industrial pilot process Exp. scenario 4 FIDIMA developed by FIDIMA

presented in Table 7. Extreme case variations of 25% can be observed for the acidification category, mainly due to the lack of detailed data regarding the electronic components. However, the comparative uncertainty analysis shown in Fig. 5, indicates that the four scenarios are comparable between them for all impact categories with a reliability of 100% according to the uncertainty variations declared in Table 1. Moreover, the comparative analysis showed that scenario 2, 3 and 4 presented lower impact categories than scenario 1, and only in the case of the Human toxicity and Acidification impact categories scenario 1 present lower values than scenario 2. Based on published wind energy LCAs [2, 46, 8-10, 12-16], it was observed that despite the overall variation existing in the literature, there is a common order of magnitude. Table 6 shows a summarized review of the literature, it can be observed that LCA results obtained in this study have values within the range observed in the literature for the following benchmarks: energy intensity, CO2 intensity, SO2 intensity and PO4 intensity.
Terrestrial ecotoxicity Photochemical oxidation Ozone layer depletion (ODP) Marine aquatic ecotoxicity Human toxicity Global warming (GWP100) Fresh water aquatic ecotox. Eutrophication Acidification Abiotic depletion -100% 1-Landfill >= 4-FIDMA 1-Landfill >= 2-Incineration -50% 0% 50% 100% 1-Landfill >= 3-Recycling

Table 4: Composite materials waste scenarios processes

Common waste scenario Material Cast iron Copper Steel Silica Aluminium Electronics Oil Concrete Rest materials Processed % 90 95 90 100 90 100 100 100 100 Method Recycling Ref. [5] Process

Recycling cast iron B250 Recycling Coppe Recycling [5] B250 Recycling ECCS Recycling [5] steel B250 Disposal, slag from Landfill MG silicon production, landfill Recycling [2, 7] Recycling Al B250 Incineration [2] -Incineration [2] -Concrete (inert Landfill [2] to landfill S) Landfill [2] Landfill B250

Fig. 5: Waste scenarios comparative uncertainty analysis

Waste Energy CO2 AcidiEutroLoad scenaintensity intensity fication phication factor rios kW.hin gCO2eq gSO2eq gPO4eq % /kW.hout /kW.hout /kW.hout /kW.hout 1 0,0691 12,0 0,0363 0,0119 21 2 0,0669 11,6 0,0365 0,0118 21 3 0,0573 8,7 0,0287 0,0106 21 4 0,0630 10,4 0,0344 0,0116 21 BiblioEnergy CO2 AcidiEutroLoad graphy intensity intensity fication phication factor review kW.hin gCO2eq gSO2eq gPO4eq % /kW.hout /kW.hout /kW.hout /kW.hout Mean 0,085 16,2 0,049 0,0212 30 Max. 0,790 46,4 0,115 0,0500 53 Min. 0,013 3,0 0,019 0,0057 18

Table 5: Common waste scenario for non composite materials Regarding to the waste scenarios comparison, Fig. 6 shows an enhancement on all impact categories in either recycling waste scenarios versus landfill or incineration waste disposal scenarios, and slightly lower impact categories in the case of scenario 2 versus scenario 1. A sensitivity analysis (absolute and comparative) was performed in order to validate the LCA model according the uncertainties declared in Table 1. The absolute uncertainties are represented by the error bars in Fig. 6 and

Table 6: Comparison between results and bibliographical review

5,E-03 4,E-03 3,E-03 2,E-03 1,E-03 0,E+00

1-Landfill 3-Recycling

2-Incineration 4-Recycling FIDIMA

Fig. 6: Normalized LCA impact categories for studied waste scenarios (include sensibility analysis absolute uncertainties deviations). Normalization CML 2 baseline 2000 V2.04 / World, 1990.
Fresh Abiotic- AcidiEutrowater depletion fication phication aquatic ecotox. g SO2 g PO4g 1,4g Sb eq / eq / eq / DB eq / kW.hout kW.hout kW.hout kW.hout 0,0932 0,0363 0,0119 4,9509 0,0784 0,0189 0,0097 4,4224 0,1080 0,0537 0,0140 5,5147 0,0934 0,0365 0,0118 4,3871 0,0788 0,0181 0,0097 3,8762 0,1077 0,0530 0,0139 4,8805 0,0786 0,0287 0,0106 3,3828 0,0640 0,0119 0,0085 2,8895 0,0932 0,0467 0,0128 3,8938 0,0909 0,0344 0,0116 3,5238 0,0754 0,0164 0,0093 2,9952 0,0157 0,0518 0,0137 4,0347 Ozone Global MarinePhotoHuman layer Terrestrial warming aquatic chemical toxicity depletion ecotoxicity (GWP100) ecotoxicity oxidation (ODP) g 1,4g CFC-11 g C2H4 g CO2 eq g 1,4-DB / g 1,4-DB / DB eq / eq / eq / / kW.hout kW.hout kW.hout kW.hout kW.hout kW.hout 12,0 18,1476 5867,1248 0,0000011 0,0033 0,1973 10,0 15,7690 5179,9841 0,0000009 0,0023 0,1739 13,9 20,6142 6554,2656 0,0000014 0,0042 0,2220 11,6 18,1476 5285,6981 0,0000011 0,0033 0,1973 9,6 15,7866 4633,7953 0,0000009 0,0023 0,1743 13,5 20,6142 5937,6008 0,0000014 0,0042 0,2220 8,7 13,8485 4105,2255 0,0000009 0,0028 0,1815 6,8 11,5052 3470,9417 0,0000006 0,0018 0,1584 10,7 16,2271 4774,7472 0,0000012 0,0037 0,2061 10,4 16,3680 4334,2724 0.0000011 0,0032 0,1938 8,4 13,9542 3664,7506 0,0000008 0,0022 0,1683 12,4 18,6761 5003,7942 0,0000014 0,0041 0,2167

Waste scenario Waste Mean scenario 1 2,50% 97,50% Waste Mean scenario 2 2,50% 97,50% Waste Mean scenario 3 2,50% 97,50% Waste Mean scenario 4 2,50% 97,50%

Table 7: LCA impact categories characterisation results for studied waste scenarios & impact categories uncertainty variations.
100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0% -20%
Abio

Reinforcing steel, at plant/RER S Recycling ECCS steel B250 Glass fibre, at plant/RER S aero Epoxy resin, liquid, at plant/RER S aero Electronics for control units/RER S aero Electricity mix/ES S ECCS steel sheet Copper, at regional storage/RER S Copper I Cast iron, at plant/RER S Aluminium, production mix, at plant/RER S Aluminium ingots B250
Eu Fr G M Te O A H Ph tic dcidifica troph esh walobal w uman t arine azone la otoch rrestr arm oxic qua yer emi ial e eple tion icati ter on aqu ing i tic e dep cal o coto tion atic (GWty coto letio xida xicit eco P10 xicit n (O tion y tox. 0) DP) y

Fig. 7: Waste scenario 1 impact categories process contributions (shown contributions >5% or <-5%).

Load factor Produced energy base on bibliographic method (MW.h) Produced energy base on REE data (MW.h) Installed power capacity until 2008 (MW) Cumulative energy demand CED, scenario 1 (MW.h) Cumulative energy demand CED, scenario 2 (MW.h) Cumulative energy demand CED, scenario 3 (MW.h) Cumulative energy demand CED, scenario 4 (MW.h) 792.994.752 567.569.311 15.133 39.208.930 37.953.628 32.502.808 35.771.873 30% 21% (-)

Table 8: Cumulative system energy flows (input & outputs)

Energy yield kW.hout /kW.hin 1-Landfill 20,2 2-Incineration 20,9 3-Recycling 24,4 4-FIDIMA 22,2 1-Landfill 14,5 2-Incineration 15,0 3-Recycling 17,5 4-FIDIMA 15,9 Waste scenario Energy Payback intensity time kW.hin years /kW.hout 0,0494 0,99 0,0479 0,96 0,0410 0,82 0,0451 0,90 0,0691 1,38 0,0669 1,34 0,0573 1,15 0,0630 1,26

Fig. 4) was used. These differences indicate that depending on the calculation method for produced energy, they might appear differences of 15% on the energy balance indicators. According to the energy performance indicators shown in Table 9, the recycling waste scenario 3 and 4 reduce the payback time a 10% in comparison with the landfill and incineration waste scenarios. In addition, depending on the method used for the determination of the produced system energy, it can be observed slight differences on the indicators. However, despite which method is chosen, Table 10 shows that the payback ratio and the CO2 intensity indicator point out a lower environmental impact of the wind turbines installed in Spain until 2008 in relation with others energy technologies.

4 CONCLUSIONS
According to the LCA model, the most important impact categories are fresh water and marine ecotoxicity, abiotic depletion, terrestrial ecotoxicity and acidification. Moreover the processes with higher environmental impact involves production of steel, copper parts and electronic components. There is evidence that the results can be compared with other LCAs literature results. In addition, according to the absolute and comparative sensitivity analysis it was demonstrated that results from waste management scenarios were comparable. The results indicate an improvement between 5% and 10% in both recycling scenarios (3 and 4) impact categories versus the landfill scenario 1 or incineration scenario 2. Likewise, a 10% improvement in the payback ratios for recycling scenarios 3 and 4 versus scenarios 1 and 2 was found. The comparison between different energy technologies indicated that wind power offers the best return rates and lower energy environmental impact categories. Moreover wind energy contribution to global warming is lower than any other energy source considered.

Base on bibliographic methods (load factor 30%) Base on REE data

Table 9: Energy indicators

Energy technology Payback time years Hydro power Run river hydro power Photovoltaic Biomass (direct wood fire) Biomass (gasification) Oil fired plant Coal-fired plant Coal gasification plant Coal-fired plant with geosequestration Gas combined cycled Nuclear Present study, wind energy installed in Spain until 2008 48-260 30-267 6-9 27 15 0,7-2,9 2,5-5,1 3,5-7 1,6-3,3 2,5 n/a* 1,38 CO2 intensity gCO2eq /kW.hout 4-18 9-18 44-217 400 50 937 1001-1154 n/a* 340 440 3-40 12 *Not available

Table 10: Energy technologies vs. wind energy installed in Spain until 2008 [15] Energy balance With the help of LCA methodology, energy balance indicators, including energy intensity, energy payback time and energy yield can be determined to compare different energy technologies. In Table 8 are shown the system inputs and outputs for energy flows based on a 20 years average wind turbine life span. Two different methods were considered to determine the produced system energy. Whereas in one case a load factor of 30% was consider based on the bibliography (see Table 6), in the other case an empirical data of the REE to forecast the accumulated produced energy of the system (see

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors express their gratitude to Gobierno de Navarra for their financial support of this work (Project DF 360/2000) and to FIDIMA for their collaboration.

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