IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v59y2013icp454-466.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Environmental impacts of micro-wind turbines and their potential to contribute to UK climate change targets

Author

Listed:
  • Greening, Benjamin
  • Azapagic, Adisa

Abstract

This paper evaluates the life cycle environmental sustainability of micro-wind turbines in the UK in comparison with grid electricity and solar PV (photovoltaics). The results suggests that per kWh electricity generated, the majority of environmental impacts from the wind turbines are lower than from grid electricity, ranging from 26% lower terrestrial toxicity to 92% lower global warming. However, depletion of abiotic elements, fresh-water and human toxicities are 82%, 74% and 53% higher than for grid electricity, respectively. The wind turbines are more environmentally sustainable than solar PV for seven out of 11 impacts, ranging from 7.5% lower eutrophication to 85% lower ozone layer depletion. However, depletion of fossil resources, fresh-water, human and terrestrial toxicities are higher for the wind turbine than for the PV, ranging from 5% for the former to 87% for the latter. UK-wide deployment of micro-wind turbines would save between 0.6 and 1% of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions on 2009 levels. Therefore, the potential of micro-wind turbines to contribute towards UK's climate change targets is limited.

Suggested Citation

  • Greening, Benjamin & Azapagic, Adisa, 2013. "Environmental impacts of micro-wind turbines and their potential to contribute to UK climate change targets," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 454-466.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:59:y:2013:i:c:p:454-466
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2013.06.037
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544213005355
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2013.06.037?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kabir, Md Ruhul & Rooke, Braden & Dassanayake, G.D. Malinga & Fleck, Brian A., 2012. "Comparative life cycle energy, emission, and economic analysis of 100 kW nameplate wind power generation," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 133-141.
    2. Allen, S.R. & Hammond, G.P., 2010. "Thermodynamic and carbon analyses of micro-generators for UK households," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 2223-2234.
    3. Tremeac, Brice & Meunier, Francis, 2009. "Life cycle analysis of 4.5Â MW and 250Â W wind turbines," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(8), pages 2104-2110, October.
    4. Fleck, Brian & Huot, Marc, 2009. "Comparative life-cycle assessment of a small wind turbine for residential off-grid use," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(12), pages 2688-2696.
    5. Amor, Mourad Ben & Lesage, Pascal & Pineau, Pierre-Olivier & Samson, Réjean, 2010. "Can distributed generation offer substantial benefits in a Northeastern American context? A case study of small-scale renewable technologies using a life cycle methodology," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(9), pages 2885-2895, December.
    6. Varun & Prakash, Ravi & Bhat, Inder Krishnan, 2009. "Energy, economics and environmental impacts of renewable energy systems," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(9), pages 2716-2721, December.
    7. Pehnt, Martin, 2006. "Dynamic life cycle assessment (LCA) of renewable energy technologies," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 55-71.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lombardi, Lidia & Mendecka, Barbara & Carnevale, Ennio & Stanek, Wojciech, 2018. "Environmental impacts of electricity production of micro wind turbines with vertical axis," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 128(PB), pages 553-564.
    2. Wang, Richard & Lam, Chor-Man & Hsu, Shu-Chien & Chen, Jieh-Haur, 2019. "Life cycle assessment and energy payback time of a standalone hybrid renewable energy commercial microgrid: A case study of Town Island in Hong Kong," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 250(C), pages 760-775.
    3. Shaikh, Mohammad A. & Kucukvar, Murat & Onat, Nuri Cihat & Kirkil, Gokhan, 2017. "A framework for water and carbon footprint analysis of national electricity production scenarios," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 406-421.
    4. Ozoemena, Matthew & Hasan, Reaz & Cheung, Wai Ming, 2016. "Analysis of technology improvement opportunities for a 1.5 MW wind turbine using a hybrid stochastic approach in life cycle assessment," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 369-382.
    5. Kamjoo, Azadeh & Maheri, Alireza & Putrus, Ghanim A., 2014. "Chance constrained programming using non-Gaussian joint distribution function in design of standalone hybrid renewable energy systems," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 677-688.
    6. Cusenza, Maria Anna & Guarino, Francesco & Longo, Sonia & Mistretta, Marina & Cellura, Maurizio, 2020. "Environmental assessment of 2030 electricity generation scenarios in Sicily: An integrated approach," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 1148-1159.
    7. van Haaren, Rob & Morjaria, Mahesh & Fthenakis, Vasilis, 2015. "An energy storage algorithm for ramp rate control of utility scale PV (photovoltaics) plants," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 894-902.
    8. Dowon Han & Young Gun Heo & Nak Joon Choi & Sang Hyun Nam & Kyoung Ho Choi & Kyung Chun Kim, 2018. "Design, Fabrication, and Performance Test of a 100-W Helical-Blade Vertical-Axis Wind Turbine at Low Tip-Speed Ratio," Energies, MDPI, vol. 11(6), pages 1-17, June.
    9. Atilgan, Burcin & Azapagic, Adisa, 2016. "Renewable electricity in Turkey: Life cycle environmental impacts," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 649-657.
    10. Sunderland, Keith M. & Narayana, Mahinsasa & Putrus, Ghanim & Conlon, Michael F. & McDonald, Steve, 2016. "The cost of energy associated with micro wind generation: International case studies of rural and urban installations," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 818-829.
    11. Mendecka, Barbara & Lombardi, Lidia, 2019. "Life cycle environmental impacts of wind energy technologies: A review of simplified models and harmonization of the results," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 462-480.
    12. Aberilla, Jhud Mikhail & Gallego-Schmid, Alejandro & Stamford, Laurence & Azapagic, Adisa, 2020. "Design and environmental sustainability assessment of small-scale off-grid energy systems for remote rural communities," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 258(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nugent, Daniel & Sovacool, Benjamin K., 2014. "Assessing the lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions from solar PV and wind energy: A critical meta-survey," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 229-244.
    2. Arvesen, Anders & Hertwich, Edgar G., 2012. "Assessing the life cycle environmental impacts of wind power: A review of present knowledge and research needs," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(8), pages 5994-6006.
    3. Lombardi, Lidia & Mendecka, Barbara & Carnevale, Ennio & Stanek, Wojciech, 2018. "Environmental impacts of electricity production of micro wind turbines with vertical axis," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 128(PB), pages 553-564.
    4. Yang, Jin & Chen, Bin, 2013. "Integrated evaluation of embodied energy, greenhouse gas emission and economic performance of a typical wind farm in China," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 559-568.
    5. Amor, Mourad Ben & Lesage, Pascal & Pineau, Pierre-Olivier & Samson, Réjean, 2010. "Can distributed generation offer substantial benefits in a Northeastern American context? A case study of small-scale renewable technologies using a life cycle methodology," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 14(9), pages 2885-2895, December.
    6. Ozoemena, Matthew & Hasan, Reaz & Cheung, Wai Ming, 2016. "Analysis of technology improvement opportunities for a 1.5 MW wind turbine using a hybrid stochastic approach in life cycle assessment," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 369-382.
    7. Mendecka, Barbara & Lombardi, Lidia, 2019. "Life cycle environmental impacts of wind energy technologies: A review of simplified models and harmonization of the results," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 462-480.
    8. Jesuina Chipindula & Venkata Sai Vamsi Botlaguduru & Hongbo Du & Raghava Rao Kommalapati & Ziaul Huque, 2018. "Life Cycle Environmental Impact of Onshore and Offshore Wind Farms in Texas," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(6), pages 1-18, June.
    9. Islam, M.R. & Mekhilef, S. & Saidur, R., 2013. "Progress and recent trends of wind energy technology," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 456-468.
    10. Tian, Xueyu & You, Fengqi, 2019. "Carbon-neutral hybrid energy systems with deep water source cooling, biomass heating, and geothermal heat and power," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 250(C), pages 413-432.
    11. Kabir, Md Ruhul & Rooke, Braden & Dassanayake, G.D. Malinga & Fleck, Brian A., 2012. "Comparative life cycle energy, emission, and economic analysis of 100 kW nameplate wind power generation," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 133-141.
    12. Savino, Matteo M. & Manzini, Riccardo & Della Selva, Vincenzo & Accorsi, Riccardo, 2017. "A new model for environmental and economic evaluation of renewable energy systems: The case of wind turbines," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 739-752.
    13. Alizadeh, Sadegh & Avami, Akram, 2021. "Development of a framework for the sustainability evaluation of renewable and fossil fuel power plants using integrated LCA-emergy analysis: A case study in Iran," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 179(C), pages 1548-1564.
    14. Richter, Mario, 2012. "Utilities’ business models for renewable energy: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 2483-2493.
    15. Strantzali, Eleni & Aravossis, Konstantinos, 2016. "Decision making in renewable energy investments: A review," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 885-898.
    16. Laleman, Ruben & Albrecht, Johan & Dewulf, Jo, 2011. "Life Cycle Analysis to estimate the environmental impact of residential photovoltaic systems in regions with a low solar irradiation," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 267-281, January.
    17. Yang, Jin & Chen, Bin, 2016. "Emergy-based sustainability evaluation of wind power generation systems," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 239-246.
    18. Tsiaras, Evangelos & Papadopoulos, Demetrios N. & Antonopoulos, Constantinos N. & Papadakis, Vagelis G. & Coutelieris, Frank A., 2020. "Planning and assessment of an off-grid power supply system for small settlements," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 149(C), pages 1271-1281.
    19. Dufo-López, Rodolfo & Bernal-Agustín, José L. & Yusta-Loyo, José M. & Domínguez-Navarro, José A. & Ramírez-Rosado, Ignacio J. & Lujano, Juan & Aso, Ismael, 2011. "Multi-objective optimization minimizing cost and life cycle emissions of stand-alone PV–wind–diesel systems with batteries storage," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(11), pages 4033-4041.
    20. Arcos-Vargas, Angel & Cansino, José M. & Román-Collado, Rocío, 2018. "Economic and environmental analysis of a residential PV system: A profitable contribution to the Paris agreement," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 1024-1035.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:59:y:2013:i:c:p:454-466. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.