Ecological Scarcity Based Impact Assessment for a Decentralised Renewable Energy System

Hendrik Lambrecht, Steffen Lewerenz, Heidi Hottenroth, Ingela Tietze and Tobias Viere
Additional contact information
Hendrik Lambrecht: Institute for Industrial Ecology (INEC), Pforzheim University, Tiefenbronner Str. 65, 75175 Pforzheim, Germany
Steffen Lewerenz: Institute for Industrial Ecology (INEC), Pforzheim University, Tiefenbronner Str. 65, 75175 Pforzheim, Germany
Heidi Hottenroth: Institute for Industrial Ecology (INEC), Pforzheim University, Tiefenbronner Str. 65, 75175 Pforzheim, Germany
Ingela Tietze: Institute for Industrial Ecology (INEC), Pforzheim University, Tiefenbronner Str. 65, 75175 Pforzheim, Germany
Tobias Viere: Institute for Industrial Ecology (INEC), Pforzheim University, Tiefenbronner Str. 65, 75175 Pforzheim, Germany

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 21, 1-14

Abstract: Increasing the share of renewable energies in electricity and heat generation is the cornerstone of a climate-friendly energy transition. However, as renewable technologies rely on diverse natural resources, the design of decarbonized energy systems inevitably leads to environmental trade-offs. This paper presents the case study of a comprehensive impact assessment for different future development scenarios of a decentralized renewable energy system in Germany. It applies an adapted ecological scarcity method (ESM) that improves decision-support by ranking the investigated scenarios and revealing their main environmental shortcomings: increased mineral resource use and pollutant emissions due to required technical infrastructure and a substantial increase in land use due to biomass combustion. Concerning the case study, the paper suggests extending the set of considered options, e.g., towards including imported wind energy. More generally, the findings underline the need for a comprehensive environmental assessment of renewable energy systems that integrate electricity supply with heating, cooling, and mobility. On a methodical level, the ESM turns out to be a transparent and well adaptable method to analyze environmental trade-offs from renewable energy supply. It currently suffers from missing quantitative targets that are democratically sufficiently legitimized. At the same time, it can provide a sound basis for an informed discussion on such targets.

Keywords: life cycle impact assessment; distance-to-target weighting; ecological scarcity; renewable electricity and heat generation; decentralized energy system (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/21/5655/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/21/5655/ (text/html)

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:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:21:p:5655-:d:436710

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().