Life cycle assessment of German energy scenarios

The transition of the German energy system is in full swing. Although the targets for the so-called ""Energiewende"" are set by the German Federal Government, different development paths are drawn by studies on energy scenarios. One major goal of the ""Energiewende"" is providing an electricity mix with reduced environmental impacts. Consequently, the goal of this study is to environmentally analyze the different energy scenarios. In a first step, a systematic literature review was followed to come up with 14 studies and 26 energy scenarios. After reducing the number of scenarios to five due to selection criteria, the environmental impacts of these five scenarios were analyzed applying life cycle assessment. Assumptions were made to transfer the scenarios into a sound life cycle assessment model. The life cycle assessment was conducted using the GaBi software as well as the GaBi database to investigate the environmental impacts of future electricity mixes in the years 2020, 2030, 2040, and 2050. The results show that the calculated impact on global warming of electricity generation in the different scenarios is higher compared to the greenhouse gas emissions presented in the respective studies. The differences can be explained, for example, by neglecting transmission losses in the calculation of the global warming impact in the studies.