Life Cycle Analysis of European Road Transport – Presentation of a Concept for the Overall Analysis of the Environmental Impact of Road Transport in Europe with a Focus on the Methodology Developed for the Assessment of Energy Supply

Authors

G. Lischka, W. Tober, Vienna University of Technology:

Year

2024

Print Info

Production/Publication ÖVK

Summary

European road transport is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in Europe and was responsible for around 20% of total European greenhouse gas emissions in 2019. Climate change makes it imperative to reduce road transport emissions quickly, significantly and sustainably.

The development of the PROVEM software tool in version 4.0 aims to map the entire European road transport sector holistically in the sense of an LCA, to analyse the causes of greenhouse gas emissions and, in particular, to forecast future developments in order to support the transformation process of the vehicle industry.

In this paper, the underlying methodology of version 4.0 of PROVEM is explained as well as the challenges in the development, especially with regard to the coverage of European road transport and the forecast of future developments. The second part of this paper provides a more detailed explanation of the methodology developed to determine the emissions of electricity.

With regard to emissions, the application of this methodology showed that, in addition to domestic electricity generation, electricity imports and exports also have a significant influence on the greenhouse gas emissions of the electricity used to charge an electric vehicle. With regard to the consideration of charging with electricity from one's own solar system, it can be seen that a maximum emissions reduction of 30 % is possible in the case of Austria, whereby the main influencing factor in addition to the number of available PV systems is the emissions from grid electricity.

ISBN

978-3-9504969-3-2

DOI

https://doi.org/10.62626/61eo-8hkq