Life cycle assessment of residential heat production from wood pellet combustion in the Northwest region of Russia

Abstract

The increasing global demand for energy and the negative environmental impacts of fossil fuel exploitation have driven interest in sustainable energy solutions, such as wood. The Russian Federation, as one of the world's largest pellet producers, has an opportunity to utilise pellets domestically. This study addresses the lack of publicly available life cycle assessment (LCA) studies on pellet production and utilisation in Russia, specifically examining the environmental impact of residential heat production from locally produced wood pellets. Utilising primary data from the Northwest region, the study follows ISO 14040 and 14044 standards and employs the ReCiPe 2016 (H) Midpoint v. 1.1 method to assess environmental impacts. The results indicate that the production of pellets is the dominant contributor to the global warming impact category, marine eutrophication, and fossil resource scarcity, while transportation has the least impact across all categories. Sensitivity analyses confirm the robustness of these findings, revealing that using natural gas for pellet drying increases emissions for global warming and fossil resource scarcity, and increasing transportation distance significantly raises emissions across all categories. The findings provide valuable insights for policymakers and stakeholders aiming to enhance the sustainability of similar bioenergy systems.