Wind Tower Foundation Life Cycle Assessment: Comparative Study
Name: Ana Paula de Morais Barroso
Type: MSc dissertation
Publication date: 20/03/2023
Advisor:
Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| João Luiz Calmon Nogueira da Gama | Advisor * |
Examining board:
| Name |
Role |
|---|---|
| Diego Lima Medeiros | External Examiner * |
| João Luiz Calmon Nogueira da Gama | Advisor * |
| Rodrigo de Alvarenga Rosa | Internal Examiner * |
Summary: Recently wind energy has been considered one of the most environmentally promising. Despite
their renewable nature, non-renewable resource inputs and greenhouse gas emissions occur during
the life cycle of these systems. The Life-Cycle Assessment (LCA) methodology makes it possible
to quantify the possible environmental impacts of a product or system. LCA studies for wind
towers usually detect the foundation of the tower as the component with the highest environmental
impact. In this context, a new model of wind tower stands out based on the tensegrity system,
called ``wind tower``, which differs from the current systems used in the lower section of the tower
and in the foundation, drastically reducing the volume of concrete and the amount of steel
reinforcement used in the foundations, enabling the reduction of materials, transport, costs and,
evidently, the environmental impact. Thus, the objective of this dissertation was to carry out a
comparative LCA between three types of foundation: standard shallow foundation, standard deep
foundation and the tensegrity foundation for a hypothetical wind turbine located in the Northeast
region of Brazil. To perform the LCA, the systems were analyzed using the OpenLCA software,
for six midpoint impact categories, which together accounted for 99% of the total impacts, in the
IMPACT 2002+ method: Non-renewable energy, Global warming, Mineral extraction, Terrestrial
acidification, Land occupation, Terrestrial ecotoxicity. In short, the tensegrity foundation showed
significant reductions in impacts in all evaluated categories. It was also evident that in standard
foundations, concrete was responsible for a significant portion of the environmental impacts,
contributing with about 59% of the impacts in the shallow foundation and 50% in the deep
foundation. Since concrete and transport distances are the items with the biggest contributions to
the total impact, and consequently, which promote greater variability in the results, a sensitivity
analysis was performed for these items. The analysis has shown that the search for cement control
in the mixtures, through the use of cementitious materials and the reduction of transport distances
are excellent measures to reduce the impacts.
