Life Cycle Assessment

With TU Graz in the lead, the LONGRUN Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) will be differentiated into the Well to Tank (WTT), the Tank to Wheel (TTW) and vehicle manufacturing and disposal related emissions (CO2, CH4, N2O). TU Graz will elaborate the WTT data base for the relevant energy systems based on literature. The data base will be implemented into a software to estimate the LCA indicators (CO2, N2O, etc) in the LONGRUN simulation platform based on vehicle energy consumption data provided by other software (VECTO and SIL systems).

Objective

Perform a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) evaluating fuels (1), focussing on the production (Well-to-Tank) and the tailpipe emissions (Tank-to-Wheel). Recommendations will be formulated on which fuel pathways are the most efficient in terms of total energy consumption and greenhouse gas reduction. The LCA will furthermore take into account Electricity (2), ICEs & Electric-Motors (3), FuelCells (4), Batteries (5), Storage of hydrogen (6), as well as the rest of the Vehicle (7). This LCA thus also compares the embedded CO2 emissions associated to the production and disposal of the most relevant components, including battery electric vehicles.

Research

The Life Cycle Analysis performed during LONGRUN [TU Graz, VUB] will be differentiated into the Well to Tank (WTT), the Tank to Wheel (TTW) and vehicle manufacturing and disposal related emissions (CO2, CH4, N2O). The TTW analysis will use the vehicle emission models which will be implemented into the LONGRUN simulation platform to provide the energy consumption data per km driven [kWh/km] and the CO2 emissions in [g/km]. The WTT emissions shall consider all emissions related from the production of the feedstock up to the delivery of the fuel into the vehicle tank. Results of the WTT process are the (grey) energy consumption and emissions in [g/kWh fuel]. The vehicle manufacturing and disposal processes will provide the emissions per kg of components material with a focus on emissions related to the production of traction batteries and H2 storage.

The target of this LONGRUN Task is to enable with the LCA-tool connected to VECTO a complete picture for the Greenhouse Gas emission evaluation of heavy duty vehicles (not to set up a full LCA of the whole vehicle and energy production).  A fair comparison of the Carbon Footprint of different kinds of vehicle concepts will be visible.

Ultimately the aim is to perform the calculation of the WTT and TTW for dedicated HDs and their exhaust emissions.

Expected Results

  1. Integration of the LCA analysis on the simulation platform with user guide accompanied by the software tool and method descriptions [expected in 2023]
  2. Roadmap regulations: upgrading the HD simulation tool and interfaces’ transition to extended VECTO [expected in 2023] – this roadmap will describe the additional elements introduced into the software VECTO, the extensions needed in component testing compared to regulation (EU) 2017/2400 accompanied by the extended VECTO software with user guide and examples for applications and results.