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State-of-the-Art
Cumulative Energy Demand for Selected Renewable Energy Technologies
Dirk Gürzenich; Hermann-Josef Wagner; Jyotirmay Mathur; Narendra Kumar Bansal
Corresponding author:: Dirk Gürzenich, Energy Economics and Environment, University of Essen, Germany
Calculation of Cumulative Energy Demand (CED) of various energy systems and the computation of their Energy Yield Ratio (EYR) suggests that one single renewable energy technology cannot be said to be the best. Due to the difference in availability of renewable energy sources, their suitability varies from place to place. Wind energy converters, solar water heating systems and photovoltaic systems have been analysed for different types of locations. Comparing the general bandwidth of performance of these technologies, however, the wind energy converters tend to be better, followed by solar water heating systems and photovoltaic systems. Since a major part of the methodology of finding CED is very close to that of life cycle assessment and also because of the dominance of environmental impacts caused by the energy demand in the entire life cycle of any product or system, it is suggested that the CED can be used as an indicator of environmental impacts, especially in the case of power producing systems. | | Keywords: CED, Cumulative Energy Demand; cumulative energy demand; energy yield ratio; EYR, Energy Yield Ratio; photovoltaics; PV, Photovoltaics; solar water heating; WEC, Wind Energy Converters; wind energy |
4 LCA (3) 143-149 (1999)
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