Evaluación del ciclo de vida de sistemas de energías renovables aplicados a edificios próximos a cero energía

Laburpena

ABSTRACT As Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of facilities and processes has become a referent in environmental studies, the work presented herein has used this technique to analyze the life-cycle of several renewable energy systems -namely photovoltaics, solar thermal, geothermal and passive Trombe wall systems- as regards their application to the Lecture Hall building at the University of Valladolid (Spain). The fundamentals of LCA, the constructive features of the Lecture Hall building and the characteristics of the systems currently used are discussed first. Subsequently, the ad-hoc design of the renewable energy systems and a benchmark of their associated environmental impact using EPS2000 methodology are presented. A sensitivity analysis of the chosen methodology has also been conducted, by comparing the results with those obtained with Eco-Indicator 99, using SimaPro8 software for the implementation of both methodologies. This study aims not only to achieve a nearly-zero energy (NZEB) building, but also to assess the energy performance of the systems currently in use, to analyze the energy efficiency of the proposed renewable systems and to evaluate the comparative environmental impacts of the various systems. This paper aims to be a significant contribution to the studies on efficiency and energy savings in existing buildings, so that its application may be extrapolated to other industrial and commercial sectors.