Comparative life cycle energy, emission, and economic analysis of 100 kW nameplate wind power generation

Md Ruhul Kabir, Braden Rooke, G.D. Malinga Dassanayake and Brian A. Fleck

Renewable Energy, 2012, vol. 37, issue 1, 133-141

Abstract: This study compares three configurations of wind turbines to produce a nameplate power of 100 kW applying LCA methodology over a lifetime of 25 years. Alternatives under study are: installing twenty Endurance (EN) 5 kW, or five Jacobs (JA) 20 kW, or one Northern Power (NP) 100 kW turbines in the Halkirk region of Alberta, Canada. The comparison has been done taking life cycle energy, environment and economic aspects into consideration. Each parameter has been quantified corresponding to a functional unit (FU) of 1 kWh. Life cycle energy requirement for NP is found to be 133.3 kJ/kWh, which is about 69% and 41% less than EN and JA respectively. Global warming impact from NP is found to be 17.8 gCO2eq/kWh, which is around 58% and 29% less respective to EN and JA. The acidification (SO2eq/kWh) and ground level ozone [(VOC + NOx)/kWh] impacts from NP are also found significantly less compared to EN and JA configuration. The difference in relative environmental impacts from configurations is found to be less while performing uncertainty analysis, but does not alter the ranking of configurations. At 10% internal rate of return (IRR), electricity price for NP is 0.21$/kWh, whereas EN and JA prices are 65% and 16% higher respectively.

Keywords: Life cycle assessment; Renewable energy; Wind turbine; Wind energy economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148111002953
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:37:y:2012:i:1:p:133-141

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2011.06.003

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().