Case Study of Wind Plant Life Cycle Energy, Emissions, and Water Footprint

Abstract

Significant environmental and economic benefits are often advertised with the installation of new wind energy facilities, although independent and comprehensive life cycle assessment (LCA) and sustainable energy science are typically not implemented. Herein, LCA methodology was used to perform a quantitative, comparative analysis and rating of the construction and operation of a wind energy plant. This LCA study moves beyond the traditional evaluation of the manufacture of the wind turbine generator, blades, tower, and nacelle and includes a detailed evaluation of the civil balance-of-plant components (i.e., foundation, haul roads and crane pads, and collector trenches). A wind plant with 90 1.8-MW turbines in south-central Wisconsin was selected for evaluation to highlight significant areas of energy and water consumption and emissions during manufacture, transportation, and construction of the wind farm. The results show that the benefits of the analyzed wind plant are not only in terms of energy payback (49.1) and greenhouse gas emissions (9.5 g CO2(eq)/kWh), but also in terms of significant savings in the consumption of water resources (0.139 L/kWh).