A Comparison of the Life-Cycle Impacts of the Concentrating Solar Power with the Product Environmental Footprint and ReCiPe Methods

Le Quyen Luu (), Maurizio Cellura (), Sonia Longo and Francesco Guarino
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Le Quyen Luu: Department of Engineering, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Edifico 9, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Maurizio Cellura: Department of Engineering, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Edifico 9, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Sonia Longo: Department of Engineering, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Edifico 9, 90128 Palermo, Italy
Francesco Guarino: Department of Engineering, University of Palermo, Viale delle Scienze, Edifico 9, 90128 Palermo, Italy

Energies, 2024, vol. 17, issue 17, 1-19

Abstract: Concentrating solar power (CSP) technologies have the potential to reduce the carbon emissions in the economy and energy sector. The growing significance of solar energy sources in addressing climate change highlights the necessity for thorough assessments of their environmental impacts. This paper explores two different life-cycle impact assessment methods, ReCiPe and Product Environmental Footprint, using CSP plants with various receiver systems and heat-transfer fluids as a case study. In terms of the overall life-cycle impact, solar towers are shown to have advantages over parabolic troughs. Most of the life-cycle impacts of solar towers are lower than those of parabolic troughs, ranging from 8% to 112%, except for human toxicity and land use impacts. However, there is not much difference between the studied heat-transfer fluids, with the variance of most impacts being less than around 1%. The single-score results indicates that the ReCiPe method assigns significance to human health impacts, while the product environmental footprint method gives equal attention to all aspects. Meanwhile the comparison of components’ contributions quantified by the two methods shows the same results for more than half of the impact categories.

Keywords: concentrating solar power; life-cycle assessment; product environmental footprint; ReCiPe (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: 2024
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