S.3 Ökodesign und Energieverbrauchskennzeichnung
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- 2024 (2) (entfernen)
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- Circular Economy (1)
- Comparative life cycle assessment (1)
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- Ecodesign (1)
- Energy efficiency (1)
- Energy labelling (1)
- Front-runner (1)
- Gas condensing boiler (1)
- Material efficiency (1)
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- S Qualitätsinfrastruktur (2) (entfernen)
The energy demand of private households contributes globally to 36.5% of the total CO2 emissions. To analyze the emissions reduction potential, we conducted a comparative life cycle assessment of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell in a residential application and a conventional system with a stand-alone gas condensing boiler and electricity from a grid mix. The period under review was referred to as the service life of the PEMFC and is assumed to be 10 years (83,038 h of PEMFC). The applicability of this in a single-family house built between 1991 and 2000 under German climatic conditions was investigated. The functional unit is set to the thermal energy demand of 16,244 kWh/a and electricity demand of 4919 kWh/a of a single-family house. The impact assessment method “CML 2001–August 2016” was used in this investigation. The manufacturing phase of the proton exchange membrane fuel cell showed disadvantages, whereby the use phase had significant advantages in most of the environmental impact categories as compared to the conventional energy supply system. Considering the whole life cycle, the advantages from the use phase could outperform the disadvantages from the manufacturing phase in most of the impact categories, except for ADP elements and TETP.
The European Commission has recently announced two guiding principles for EU product policy: First, product policy shall ensure that the performance of front-runner products in terms of sustainability becomes the norm, and second, the effectiveness of the current Ecodesign legislative framework is going to be significantly improved. Within this paper, already existing front-runner approaches and recent and ongoing product policy-making processes were reviewed. Based on the results, an EU front-runner approach is outlined. The presented approach (i) refers to performance levels of the best products already available on the market, (ii) aggregates information in existing databases, and (iii) works semi-automated. Together, all three attributes have a high potential to facilitate and accelerate the specification of appropriate minimum requirements for products at the EU level. This way, EU policymakers can deliver on the core objectives of the Ecodesign legislative framework much better. The basic mechanism and its legal entrenchment of the approach are illustrated for the energy efficiency of energy-related products. In addition, the Front-Runner Approach can be applied to any product group in the scope of the upcoming Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation and to a wide range of product-related minimum requirements, such as durability, reparability, or recycled content. The study’s objective is to suggest a tailor-made and dynamic approach to keep the EU product legislation up to date using innovative technology based on the investigation of current regulations and identify the gap. Experiences from three international case studies suggest that a front-runner approach to setting energy-performance standards can drive innovation and reduce energy consumption via promoting energy-efficient products; transparency about available products is one of the key factors and can be established by a database. The EU front-runner approach comprises extending the existing energy label database (or making use of the digital product passport) and introducing a legislative procedure that triggers changes in the energy efficiency requirements in the specific EU regulations if the database shows that a certain threshold value is reached. Challenges such as limited EU staff capacities and opportunities such as increased dynamic are discussed.