Is repair of energy using products environmentally beneficial? The case of high voltage electric motors
Journal article, 2023

Repair is advocated as a circular strategy to improve the environmental performance of products. Whether this holds for very long-lived and energy intensive products has not been addressed. This study compares environmental impacts of two high voltage motors of different energy efficiency and assesses their use extension by repair with life cycle assessment (LCA). Due to high energy use, long lifetime and intensive use, the use phase dominates all environmental impacts, even resource depletion. Therefore, a higher energy efficiency is more beneficial than extending the use by repair, and if the energy efficiency is slightly reduced, the repair is not beneficial. Therefore, product requirements and users and manufacturers of such products should ensure designs with high energy efficiency rather than making the product repairable. Finally, the results highlight the importance of including resource use from electricity production and transmission in LCA of the use extension of energy using products.

repair

circular economy

use extension

Life Cycle Assessment

resource depletion

Author

Adeline Jerome

Chalmers, Technology Management and Economics, Environmental Systems Analysis

Maria Ljunggren

Chalmers, Technology Management and Economics, Environmental Systems Analysis

Mathias Janssen

Chalmers, Technology Management and Economics, Environmental Systems Analysis

Resources, Conservation and Recycling

09213449 (ISSN) 18790658 (eISSN)

Vol. 196 107038

Mistra REES (Resource-effective and efficient solutions) phase 2

The Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research (Mistra) (2019-00239), 2019-12-01 -- 2023-12-31.

Areas of Advance

Production

Subject Categories

Other Environmental Engineering

Environmental Management

Energy Systems

Other Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering

DOI

10.1016/j.resconrec.2023.107038

More information

Latest update

7/24/2023