Applying Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment to maximise the innovation potential of new technologies for critical components in wind turbines

Abstract

Future wind turbines require flexible and economically affordable product development processes to obtain reliable and validated new concepts for larger wind turbines. Pitch bearings and gearboxes are considered critical components, due to their high contribution to the operational costs of wind farms and their high failure rates. Within the Horizon 2020 project INNTERESTING (Innovative Future-Proof Testing Methods for Reliable Critical Components in Wind Turbines) new concepts and technologies concerning two critical components are being developed for future wind turbines. Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA) is applied iteratively to gain insights in the more demanding requirements for future wind turbines, specifically on the reduction of capital and operational expenditures and improvement of the environmental and socio-economic performance aspects of wind turbines in order to reduce the economic, environmental and social impact of the newly developed technologies. This paper focusses on the results of the first LCSA iteration for the business-as-usual reference scenarios which will serve as a benchmark and reference for the newly to be developed solutions in the project.