IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jeners/v13y2020i15p3852-d390827.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Life Cycle Assessment of Italian Electricity Scenarios to 2030

Author

Listed:
  • Alessia Gargiulo

    (Ricerca Sistema Energetico–RSE SpA, 20134 Milan, Italy)

  • Maria Leonor Carvalho

    (Ricerca Sistema Energetico–RSE SpA, 20134 Milan, Italy)

  • Pierpaolo Girardi

    (Ricerca Sistema Energetico–RSE SpA, 20134 Milan, Italy)

Abstract

The study presents a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Italian electricity scenarios, devised in the Integrated National Energy and Climate Plan (INECP). A fully representative LCA of the national electricity system was carried out, taking into consideration a great number of different power plant typologies for current (2016 and 2017) and future (2030) electricity mixes. The study confirms that LCA can be a powerful tool for supporting energy planning and strategies assessment. Indeed the results put in evidence not only the improvement of the environmental profile from the current to the future mix (the impacts decrease from 2016 to 2030 due to the transition towards renewables, mainly wind and photovoltaic), but also underline the difference between two scenarios at 2030 (being the scenario that includes the strategic objectives of the INECP to 2030 the one showing best environmental profile), providing an evaluation of the effect of different energy policies. For example, in the INECP scenario CO 2 eq/kWh is 46% lower than current scenario and 37% lower than business as usual scenario for 2030. Moreover, considering different impact categories allowed to identify potential environmental trade-offs. The results suggest also the need of future insight on data related to photovoltaic technologies and materials and their future development.

Suggested Citation

  • Alessia Gargiulo & Maria Leonor Carvalho & Pierpaolo Girardi, 2020. "Life Cycle Assessment of Italian Electricity Scenarios to 2030," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-16, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:15:p:3852-:d:390827
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/15/3852/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/15/3852/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Guillermo San Miguel & María Cerrato, 2020. "Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of the Spanish Electricity: Past, Present and Future Projections," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(8), pages 1-20, April.
    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. Shalini Verma & Akshoy Ranjan Paul & Nawshad Haque, 2022. "Selected Environmental Impact Indicators Assessment of Wind Energy in India Using a Life Cycle Assessment," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-16, May.
    2. Calise, Francesco & Cappiello, Francesco Liberato & Cimmino, Luca & Dentice d’Accadia, Massimo & Vicidomini, Maria, 2023. "Dynamic simulation and thermoeconomic analysis of a power to gas system," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 187(C).
    3. Marco Facchino & Paulina Popielak & Marcin Panowski & Dariusz Wawrzyńczak & Izabela Majchrzak-Kucęba & Marcello De Falco, 2022. "The Environmental Impacts of Carbon Capture Utilization and Storage on the Electricity Sector: A Life Cycle Assessment Comparison between Italy and Poland," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(18), pages 1-22, September.
    4. Maria Leonor Carvalho & Giulio Mela & Andrea Temporelli & Elisabetta Brivio & Pierpaolo Girardi, 2022. "Sodium-Ion Batteries with Ti 1 Al 1 TiC 1.85 MXene as Negative Electrode: Life Cycle Assessment and Life Critical Resource Use Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(10), pages 1-18, May.
    5. Lorenzo Ferrari & Gianluca Pasini & Umberto Desideri, 2023. "Towards a Power Production from 100% Renewables: The Italian Case Study," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-17, February.
    6. Rudha Khudhair Mohammed & Hooman Farzaneh, 2023. "Life Cycle Environmental Impacts Assessment of Post-Combustion Carbon Capture for Natural Gas Combined Cycle Power Plant in Iraq, Considering Grassroots and Retrofit Design," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-35, February.
    7. Alessandro Cardarelli & Marco Barbanera, 2023. "Substitution of Fossil Coal with Hydrochar from Agricultural Waste in the Electric Arc Furnace Steel Industry: A Comprehensive Life Cycle Analysis," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(15), pages 1-19, July.
    8. Maria Leonor Carvalho & Andrea Temporelli & Pierpaolo Girardi, 2021. "Life Cycle Assessment of Stationary Storage Systems within the Italian Electric Network," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(8), pages 1-19, April.
    9. Giulio Mela & Maria Leonor Carvalho & Andrea Temporelli & Pierpaolo Girardi, 2021. "The Commodity Life Cycle Costing Indicator. An Economic Measure of Natural Resource Use in the Life Cycle," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(9), pages 1-20, April.
    10. Maurizio Bressan & Elena Campagnoli & Carlo Giovanni Ferro & Valter Giaretto, 2022. "Rice Straw: A Waste with a Remarkable Green Energy Potential," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-15, February.
    11. Costantini, Michele & Provolo, Giorgio & Bacenetti, Jacopo, 2024. "The effects of incorporating renewable energy into the environmental footprint of beef production," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 289(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. Diankai Wang & Inna Gryshova & Anush Balian & Mykola Kyzym & Tetiana Salashenko & Viktoriia Khaustova & Olexandr Davidyuk, 2022. "Assessment of Power System Sustainability and Compromises between the Development Goals," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(4), pages 1-23, February.
    2. T.E.T Dantas & S.R Soares, 2022. "Systematic literature review on the application of life cycle sustainability assessment in the energy sector," Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, Springer, vol. 24(2), pages 1583-1615, February.
    3. García, Antonio & Monsalve-Serrano, Javier & Lago Sari, Rafael & Tripathi, Shashwat, 2022. "Life cycle CO₂ footprint reduction comparison of hybrid and electric buses for bus transit networks," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 308(C).
    4. Jianxue Chai & Lihui Zhang & Meng Yang & Qingyun Nie & Lei Nie, 2020. "Investigation on the Coupling Coordination Relationship between Electric Power Green Development and Ecological Civilization Construction in China: A Case Study of Beijing," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-29, October.

    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:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:15:p:3852-:d:390827. 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: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    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.