Maintenance and end-of-life analysis in LCA for barge-type floating wind turbine

This paper is aimed at improving the maintenance and end-of-life steps in the associated Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of barge-type floating wind turbines to reduce their environmental impact. Maintenance and end-of-life steps are given special attention since these phases have received only cursory focus in previous LCA studies. Different maintenance and end-of-life scenarios have been considered in the analysis. From the LCA results, it has been found that by applying on-site and onshore maintenance strategies, the lifetime of the turbine can be extended. Four alternative scenarios for the end-of-life step have been examined: mechanical recycling, mechanical-incineration, incineration processes, and landfill. The environmental impacts of these scenarios are evaluated using the LCA methodology. The investigation showed that the lowest environmental impacts correspond to the onshore maintenance and the mechanical recycling scenarios. These CO₂ emissions of these scenarios are 13.68 g CO₂ eq/kWh and 0.107 g CO₂ eq/kWh, respectively.