Life Cycle Assessment of 20 MW Wind Farm in Libya

Abstract

Life cycle assessment (LCA) was undertaken for a proposed wind farm of ten Gamesa wind turbines with a 2 MW each. A 20 MW land-based wind turbine’s lifetime primary energy consumption was found to be 56 GWh, compared to the 2082 GWh of electric energy it produces. Energy payback takes 6.3 months, has a payback ratio of 38, and an energy intensity of 0.0269 kWhprim/kWhprod. The emission of 8.83 g/kWhprod of CO2 eq. The cost savings associated with CO2 mitigation amount to $155 million in savings. Additionally, the amount of money saved as a result of fuel savings was calculated at $56 485 million, in which could be used to invest in wind farms development. The GHG avoided emission is 7.7 M ton. The energy consumed by manufacturing process accounted for 79.4%, recycling comes in second with 15.6%, then transportation with 4.6%. The CO2 emissions of production phase of the wind turbine accounted for 63.35% of total CO2 emissions, while recycling accounted for 33.15% and transportation for 3.5%, with negligible share of landfilling and operation and maintenance phases.