Life Cycle Assessment of Stationary Storage Systems within the Italian Electric Network

Maria Leonor Carvalho,Andrea Temporelli,Pierpaolo Girardi

doi:10.3390/en14082047

Abstract

The introduction of stationary storage systems into the Italian electric network is necessary to accommodate the increasing share of energy from non-programmable renewable sources and to reach progressive decarbonization targets. In this framework, a life cycle assessment is a suitable tool to assess environmental impacts during the entire life cycle of stationary storage systems, i.e., their sustainability. A Li-ion battery (lithium–iron–phosphate (LFP), nickel–manganese–cobalt (NMC) 532, and NMC 622) entire life cycle assessment (LCA) based on primary and literature data was performed. The LCA results showed that energy consumption (predominantly during cell production), battery design (particularly binder choice), inventory accuracy, and data quality are key aspects that can strongly affect results. Regarding the battery construction phase, LFP batteries showed better performance than the NMC ones, but when the end-of-life (EoL) stage was included, NMC cell performance became very close to those of LFPs. Sensitivity and uncertainty analyses, done using the Monte Carlo methodology, confirmed that the results (except for the freshwater eutrophication indicator) were characterized by a low dispersion and that the energy mix choice, during the different battery life phases, was able to greatly influence the overall impact. The use of primary and updated data related to battery cell production, like those used in the present paper, was necessary to obtain reliable results, and the application to a European production line is an item of novelty of this paper.

Highlights

The Italian Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan (INECP), like many other national energy and climate plans, has established the national targets for energy efficiency, renewable sources, and the reduction of CO2 emissions to be reached by 2030 [1]
Considering that the service offered by a storage system is that of accumulating and releasing a given quantity of energy, the functional unit chosen for this life cycle assessment (LCA) study was equal to 1 kWh of energy released, a value chosen by considering the entire useful lives of the batteries
In order to be able to compare our results with previous studies, we present the cradle-to-gate portion of our LCA in terms of battery mass (1 kg) and nominal energy capacity (1 kWh)

Summary

Introduction

The Italian Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan (INECP), like many other national energy and climate plans, has established the national targets for energy efficiency, renewable sources, and the reduction of CO2 emissions to be reached by 2030 [1]. Non-programmable renewable sources (wind and solar) will increase in importance in the energy mix, both in relative and absolute terms Because of this growth, transmission and distribution networks will need to convey electricity with a greater flexibility, which can be achieved through investments into smart grids and storage capacity development. Battery storage systems are emerging as potential solutions to increase system flexibility due to their capability to quickly absorb, hold, and re-inject electricity into the grid, which makes them key elements in a successful energy transition. For this reason, it is important to evaluate the environmental sustainability of such systems.

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Results

Conclusion