Life cycle analysis of a solar thermal system with thermochemical storage process

A new more efficient solar heating/cooling system has been developed for houses and buildings by an EU co-financed SOLASTORE (5FW ENERGIE) project with a consortium of partners from France, Spain, Portugal and the UK. It is targeting a considerable reduction of CO2 emission by improvement of the solar energy system efficiency and the extended utilization of the solar energy using reversible chemical reactions as energy storage. Although solar energy is considered environmentally friendly, the whole life cycle of a solar energy production has to be evaluated. The production targets for the SOLARSTORE system are potentially thousands units. This makes it very important to explore the total environmental impacts caused during its whole life cycle. This work employs Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), an ISO 14040 based technique for evaluating the total environmental impacts associated with a product, to analyse the total environmental impacts of SOLARSTORE system during its whole life cycle. The standard LCA methodology has been extended and modified to cope successfully with this task. The LCA results show the total environmental impacts to achieve 1 GJ energy by using SOLARSTORE system: global warming potential ranging in 6.3–10 kg CO2, acidification potential in 46.6–70 g SO2, eutrophication in 2.1–3.1 g phosphate and photochemical oxidant in 0.99–1.5 g C2H4. The raw material acquisition processes contribute 99% to the total environmental impacts. A LCA based comparison has been made analysing the total environmental impacts of a traditional solar heating system, a traditional fossil fuel heating system and SOLARSTORE system. It shows that SOLARSTORE provides a better solution for reduction of negative environmental impacts by using solar energy.