Life Cycle Assessment of Wind Power Generation System

Wind power is experiencing an unprecedented development in China. It is regarded a clean energy alternative as no emissions are generated in electricity production process. However, the material-intensive production of wind turbines is associated with environmental releases. Therefore, assessing the environmental impacts of wind power generation systems involves not only power production process but also all related processes. Life cycle assessment (LCA) considering all environmental emissions in the whole lifetime of the wind power generation system is proven a powerful tool to estimate the real environmental costs of wind power and can provide information for companies, local resident, and government officials about the environmental implications of wind power generation technology. A case of typical wind power generation system was shown to demonstrate the procedures of LCA. However, LCA in wind power generation systems in the current stage still has some issues to be solved, represented as time-varying factors, vague definition of system boundary and standardization, and so on. In addition to improving life cycle analysis to make the assessment more precise and feasible, the scope of wind power generation should be extended to life cycle sustainability evaluation so as to give an overview of the wind power generation system and shed lights on development pathway design. Keywords: wind power generation system; life cycle assessment; dynamic life cycle analysis; GHG emission; energy payback time