Environmental Impacts of Photovoltaic Energy Storage in a Nearly Zero Energy Building Life Cycle

Abstract

Climate change, the economic crisis and the current geopolitical situation are the biggest challenges of today. They participate to a fundamental extent in the creation of international policies. Renewable energy sources are thus gaining worldwide popularity. The paper deals with the assessment of the impact of four selected stages of the life cycle of a NZEB building on the environment in 13 impact categories. The analysis is performed in accordance with the LCA method using the attributional modeling approach. The results show the partial and total shift of impacts on the environment of photovoltaic energy storage in comparison with photovoltaic energy export across the building life cycle. Along the climate change impact reduction as a positive effect on the environment, a substantial impact increase is observed on the depletion of abiotic resources. Results also show the total environmental impact of the building life cycle, considering the use of stored energy in a lithium-based battery as being beneficial in most categories despite the relatively high impact increment in the stage of replacement.