Life cycle assessment of PV‐battery systems for a cloakroom and club building in Zurich

Abstract

AbstractThe Office for Building Engineering of the City of Zurich plans the construction of a cloakroom and club building. The building and the floodlights of the surrounding soccer fields use electricity mainly in the evening. That is why the installation of a photovoltaic (PV) system in combination with a battery storage system is evaluated in the pre‐project phase. The environmental footprint of the PV system with multi‐crystalline silicon modules and of current, future, and second‐life lithium‐ion batteries is quantified within the life cycle assessment of the building. The self‐consumption share of PV electricity increases from 31% to 62% if a 60 kWp PV system is complemented by a 100 kWh battery storage. The complementary grid electricity mix strongly influences the environmental impacts of electricity consumed by the cloakroom and club building. The installation of a PV system and a battery storage leads to a 10% to 17% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared with the full coverage of the electricity demand by the average Swiss supply mix. The addition of a current battery system does not yield any further reduction compared with the “PV only” option. With the renewable electricity mix of the City of Zurich, the installation of a PV system and a battery storage leads to higher environmental impacts of the electricity consumed by the cloakroom and club building, irrespective of the type of battery used. A future increase in energy density, production optimisations, and second‐life batteries bear a significant potential to reduce the environmental impacts of battery storage systems.