Life Cycle Assessment of Energy Systems in Complex Buildings

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a full cycle-of-life analysis concerning the evaluation of hazards menacing the environment, connected with products or services burdened by the consumption of energy and materials which leads to the depletion of natural resources and affects both the quality of ecosystems and human health. As far as complex buildings are concerned, their full life cycle comprises the extraction of mineral raw materials and primary energy, as well as the production of building materials, the construction of buildings, their exploitation, and demolition connected with the recycling of building materials. LCA contains the following stages: definition of the goal and scope, inventory analysis, impact assessment, and interpretation. The second stage, also called life cycle inventory (LCI) analysis, consists in completing a database concerning the supply of energy and raw and other materials, information about main and by-production, amounts of noxious emissions, and other environmental effects. In the case of complex systems (e.g. complex buildings), as an algorithm of setting up material-energy balances, input-output analysis ought to be applied. In the third stage, the respective environmental burdens are expressed as corresponding categories affecting the environment (e.g. acidification, eutrophication, greenhouse effect, and ozone depletion) in compliance with accepted international references. © Springer-Verlag London 2013.