Life cycle assessment of renewable energy technologies in Northern Africa: A critical review

Abstract

The need to transition from fossil energy sources, a major contributor to greenhouse gases has become more critical than ever in the face of rising climate threats. Consequently, there has been a wider acceptance and deployment of renewable energy sources. Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), on the other hand, is a standardized tool that has been deployed to comprehend the environmental effects of these alternative energy systems. Most studies conducted in LCA on renewable energy are mostly featured in regions like Europe, Asia, North and South America. While leaving a substantial gap in the volume of work conducted so far in Africa, especially concerning North African countries, a region that shares the largest energy-related CO₂ emissions in the continent. Thus, an in-depth review article is required to discuss the state-of-art on life cycle assessment of renewable energy technologies in North Africa, highlighting the region’s peculiarities, outlook, and future prospects. Aspects including the study’s overview, goal, scope, kind of renewable energy sources, functional unit, system boundary, and impact categories are included in this review. Results from this review reveal that studies on LCA in this area of work are still at their early stages, accounting for only 2% of the total LCA research in the continent, with solar and bioenergy constituting most of the case studies with 27% and 33% of the total research outlook. In terms of GWP contribution, bioenergy and wind energy recorded the most and least impact in the region, respectively. Findings from this review can help policymakers and researchers have a broader understanding of the environmental contributions of various renewable energy deployed in the region while seeking to improve and regularize the LCA methodology as a standard tool for evaluation.