Prospective Life Cycle Assessment: Effect of Electricity Decarbonization in Building Sector

Abstract

The building sector is responsible for 43% of France’s final energy consumption and is strongly associated with a high environmental impact due to its high consumption of energy and natural resources. These impacts are significant in isolated islands. Due to its geographical isolation and an area of 2512 km2, Reunion Island has a heavily carbon-based economy with a high import rate of raw materials for the building sector. This study aimed to investigate the effect of electricity mix decarbonization on residential house environmental impact. The methodology consists of three parts: (i) evaluating environmental impacts of Single-Family Houses (SFH) using life cyce assessment(LCA), (ii) defining SFH typologies using the K-means clustering algorithm, and (iii) implementing energy scenario in LCA of SFH to assess decarbonization effect. The environmental results were particularly sensitive in the operational phase, with a decrease of 83% between 2020 to 2040 of the global warming potential (GWP). The structural phase highlights the weight of imports in the building sector, as a decrease of only 1% is observed. This study clearly shows the necessary energy transition for Reunion Island. In the structural phase, the study recommends that stakeholders reduce imports and increase the share of recovered materials to achieve a substantial reduction in impacts.

Future trends in materials manufacturing for low carbon building stocks: A prospective macro-scale analysis at the provincial level

“…8. Besides, as Ayagapin et al (2021) pointed out, the results are highly dependent on the state or countries which produce the construction materials. In their case, considering that the majority of the materials were imported, the change of the local electricity mix towards more renewables merely had an impact on the product stage of the building, reducing the emissions by about 1% at the building level; the electricity mix is only used for semi-finished items that must be assembled before being transported to the construction site.…”

“…Although operational energy is not considered in their analysis, a large number of materials and embodied emissions reduction strategies are identified and included. Ayagapin et al (2021) focused on the impact of decarbonizing the electricity mix on single-family houses in Reunion Island, a French overseas region. By integrating the political ambitions of electricity production by 2045, they achieve an 83% reduction of the global warming potential (GWP) in the operational phase in their scenario, but only 1% reduction in the GWP of the structural materials, which mainly come from imports.…”

Designing a zero-order energy transition model: How to create a new Starter Data Kit

“…In a separate piece of work, additional data from the Starter Data Kits and the scenario results from [5] were modelled on a separate open-source tool to identify the potential baseload, peak load, curtailment and loss of load of each scenario previously studied [6] ; By academics at the University of Mauritius to develop new Starter Data Kits for their country. Their aim is to promote regional collaboration between the African Small Island Developing States (SIDS) for collective effort to encourage decarbonisation and sustainable development, and investigate explorative energy scenarios [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ]; In combination with other tools such as the European Climate Calculator model (EUCalc) for a country model of Qatar [11] ; In China, the Starter Data Kits will be combined with the China 2050 Calculator (jointly developed by China and the UK) to deduce China's energy consumption in 2050, providing a basis for Chinese policymakers to formulate environmental policies and help China achieve its carbon neutrality goals. In Kenya, the Starter Data Kits have provided the foundation Reference Energy System (RES) for two energy planning tools for the Kenyan government: a standalone power system model indicating new investment requirements in powerbase generation capacity and an integrated whole energy system model.…”

“…By academics at the University of Mauritius to develop new Starter Data Kits for their country. Their aim is to promote regional collaboration between the African Small Island Developing States (SIDS) for collective effort to encourage decarbonisation and sustainable development, and investigate explorative energy scenarios [ 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ];…”