The development of renewable energy has become an important issue nowadays owing to the growing concerns about global warming and shortage of fossil fuels. The present study proposes an approach that integrates life c...The development of renewable energy has become an important issue nowadays owing to the growing concerns about global warming and shortage of fossil fuels. The present study proposes an approach that integrates life cycle assessment (LCA), 3E (Energy-Economics-Environment) indicators and multi-criteria analysis (MCA) to evaluate environmental impacts and find the best choice or better choices among various renewable energy development plans. Several alternatives of wind turbines and photovoltaic (PV) systems are considered in the case study since they are found to be more feasible in Taiwan in a preliminary study. By using the proposed approach, the result indicates that the major environmental impacts arising from the development of wind turbines and PV systems in Taiwan are the generation of respiratory inorganics and minerals as well as the consumption of fossil fuels. Based on experts’ opinions, the outcome of multi-criteria analysis suggests that wind turbines have more advantages than PV systems in Taiwan. In particular, among the studied systems, a 2500-kW offshore wind turbine system has the greatest integrated performance, and a 4500-kW onshore wind turbine system comes in second.展开更多
文摘The development of renewable energy has become an important issue nowadays owing to the growing concerns about global warming and shortage of fossil fuels. The present study proposes an approach that integrates life cycle assessment (LCA), 3E (Energy-Economics-Environment) indicators and multi-criteria analysis (MCA) to evaluate environmental impacts and find the best choice or better choices among various renewable energy development plans. Several alternatives of wind turbines and photovoltaic (PV) systems are considered in the case study since they are found to be more feasible in Taiwan in a preliminary study. By using the proposed approach, the result indicates that the major environmental impacts arising from the development of wind turbines and PV systems in Taiwan are the generation of respiratory inorganics and minerals as well as the consumption of fossil fuels. Based on experts’ opinions, the outcome of multi-criteria analysis suggests that wind turbines have more advantages than PV systems in Taiwan. In particular, among the studied systems, a 2500-kW offshore wind turbine system has the greatest integrated performance, and a 4500-kW onshore wind turbine system comes in second.
