Abstract
PurposeTo date, very few studies have attempted to quantify the environmental impacts of a wave energy converter, and almost all of these focus solely on the potential climate change impacts and embodied energy. This paper presents a full life cycle assessment (LCA) of the first-generation Pelamis wave energy converter, aiming to contribute to the body of published studies and examine any potential trade-offs or co-benefits across a broad range of environmental impacts.MethodsThe process-based attributional LCA was carried out on the full cradle-to-grave life cycle of the Pelamis P1 wave energy converter, including the device, its moorings and sub-sea connecting cable up to the point of connection with the grid. The case study was for a typical wave farm located off the north-west coast of Scotland. Foreground data was mostly sourced from the manufacturer. Background inventory data was mostly sourced from the ecoinvent database (v3.3), and the ReCiPe and CED impact assessment methods were applied.Results and discussionThe Pelamis was found to have significantly lower environmental impacts than conventional fossil generation in 6 impact categories, but performed worse than most other types of generation in 8 of the remaining 13 categories studied. The greatest impacts were from steel manufacture and sea vessel operations. The device performs quite well in the two most frequently assessed impacts for renewable energy converters: climate change and cumulative energy demand. The carbon payback period is estimated to be around 24 months (depending on the emissions intensity of the displaced generation mix), and the energy return on investment is 7.5. The contrast between this and the poor performance in other impact categories demonstrates the limitations of focussing only on carbon and energy.ConclusionsThe Pelamis was found to generally have relatively high environmental impacts across many impact categories when compared to other types of power generation; however, these are mostly attributable to the current reliance on fossil fuels in the global economy and the early development stage of the technology. Opportunities to reduce this also lie in reducing requirements for steel in the device structure, and decreasing the requirements for sea vessel operations during installation, maintenance and decommissioning.
Highlights
The drive to decarbonise electricity supplies around the world, in an ongoing effort to mitigate climate change, has encouraged an Responsible editor: Ian Vázquez-Rowe Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.increase in renewable energy generation
The environmental impacts from both the ReCiPe and Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) impact assessment methods are summarised in Table 5, along with the acronyms used for each impact category
Steel production and processing has a significant impact in virtually all categories, freshwater eutrophication, human toxicity, freshwater and marine ecotoxicity and metal depletion
Summary
A number of different wave energy converters are under development, with the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre’s (JRC) ocean energy database currently containing details of over 100 different designs (Uihlein 2016) These designs all vary widely, and are usually classified into a number of different broad categories: the IPCC suggests three— oscillating body systems, oscillating water columns and overtopping devices—while the JRC suggests eight—dividing oscillating body systems into attenuator, point absorber, oscillating wave surge, pressure differential and rotating mass systems and considering Bother^ devices, to better reflect more recent developments in this sector (IPCC 2011; Uihlein 2016). The Pelamis WEC is an example of a floating oscillating body system of the attenuator type, as it extracts energy from the oscillation induced by the wave motion on separate sections of tube. The moorings allow the Pelamis to face into the oncoming waves, and the
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