Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment of the Spanish Electricity: Past, Present and Future Projections

This paper provides an investigation into the sustainability of the electrical system in Spain. The analysis covers historic inventories of power generation, installed capacity and technology mix since 1990 and also contemplates four alternative projections for 2030 and 2050. The sustainability is evaluated using eight indicators that provide objective information about the environmental (climate change, fossil depletion, ozone layer depletion, terrestrial acidification, human toxicity and photochemical smog), economic (levelized cost of electricity) and socio-economic (direct employment) performance of the system. The results show an increase in the magnitude of the environmental impacts between 1990 and 2008, due to a growing power demand triggered by economic expansion. After 2008, the environmental performance improves due to the economic recession and the penetration of renewable energies. Overall, the cost of power generation remains rather stable as rising expenses generated by renewables are compensated by a progressive reduction in the cost of fossil technologies. Direct employment generation has been strongly stimulated by the upsurge in renewables that has taken place in Spain after 2008. Regarding future scenarios, the results evidence that the most ambitious projections in terms of renewable penetration perform best in terms of environmental performance, employment generation and reduced costs (€/MWh). The significance of these benefits was particularly clear in the 2050 scenario. In the long term, the scenario considering higher fossil fuel contributions (ST) performed worst in all sustainability indicators.