Open AccessConsidering the dynamics of electricity demand and production for the environmental benchmark of Swiss residential buildings that exclusively use electricity
Author(s) -
Didier Beloin-Saint-Pierre,
Pierryves Padey,
Blaise Périsset,
Vasco Medici
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
iop conference series. earth and environmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.179
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1755-1307
pISSN - 1755-1315
DOI - 10.1088/1755-1315/323/1/012096
Subject(s) - electricity , renewable energy , life cycle assessment , electricity generation , production (economics) , environmental economics , benchmark (surveying) , electricity demand , environmental science , mains electricity , natural resource economics , environmental resource management , economics , engineering , geography , power (physics) , microeconomics , physics , geodesy , quantum mechanics , electrical engineering , voltage
The environmental impacts of buildings can significantly vary with the dynamics of their energy demand and production. Significant variations have been modelled for buildings in the U.S., France, Denmark and Switzerland but the levels of variation are different between these countries. This difference can be explained by factors like the existing energy sources, the availability of renewable energy and the importation of electricity from nearby countries. With its high share of renewable energy and significant electricity exchanges with neighbouring countries, Switzerland presents a specific case where benchmark values from dynamic life cycle assessment should be well understood. The project’s goal is to provide results from a dynamic life cycle assessment with a detailed study of the influence from temporal fluctuations in the national electricity production, electricity imports, decentralised generation and electricity demand from buildings. Additionally, consequences of changing the temporal precision (i.e. hourly, daily, monthly and annual) of energy dynamics are analysed. This assessment is conducted with demand and production estimations for the design of a residential building in Switzerland. Disparities of results are assessed for all temporal precision levels with a comparison to the values that are obtained with the current national methodology which operates with values based on average annual electricity production. Results thus suggest some methodological recommendations to develop the temporal aspects of the environmental impact assessment methodology for the Swiss building sector.