Environmental performance of energy systems

Zurich and other cities in Switzerland committed themselves to the 2000 Watt society, a concept developed by the ETH domain (visit the novatlantis website). On one hand, the 2000 Watt society concept implies effective measures to significantly reduce the energy demand. On the other, the question regarding the most effective energy technologies needs to be addressed as well.

Since the early nineties, staff members of ESU-services Ltd. contribute to the environmental assessment of energy systems based on life cycle assessment. Long-term experience with the pioneering work on "Oekoinventare von Energiesystemen", decorated with the ABB energy technology award, with the internationally leading ecoinvent database and with large European projects such as ECLIPSE, NEEDS and RENEW make ESU-services Ltd. the first address in Switzerland when it comes to fair and unbiased LCA of today's and future energy systems.

The environmental performance of electricity producing systems is shown in the charts below. The energy efficiency and the environmental performance differs substantially between the technologies. Primary energy is more efficiently used by renewable energy technologies such as hydro power, wind power, biogas, and photovoltaics. The energy losses are highest with nuclear power: 3 Watt are lost under way when providing 1 Watt electricity to the citizens. The assessment is based on the consensus modelling of the ecoinvent Centre, involving ETHZ, EPFL, PSI, Empa and ART.

The environmental impacts, expressed with the recent update of the ecological scarcity method (commissioned by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment, FOEN), are lowest with hydro power, waste incineration and wind power. The environmental impacts of nuclear power are at more than twice as high than electricity from wood or biogas.

ESU-services enables you to calculate the environmental impacts of your own mix of electricity or district heat and of various transport services with Webtools.

Download study "Primary Energy Factors of Energy Systems" (in German)

Download study "Primary Energy Factors of Transport Systems" (in German)