Life cycle assessment of an LTE base station BASED ON Primary data

ETSI EE WS 2015, Sophia Antipolis | © Ericsson AB 2015 | 2015-05-29 | Page 1

Life cycle assessment of an LTE base station BASED ON Primary data

Pernilla Bergmark Master Researcher, Sustainability Ericsson AB Third ETSI Workshop on ICT Energy Efficiency and Environmental Sustainability 3-5 June 2015, Sophia Antipolis


Life Cycle assessment (LCA)

Production

Use

Raw material acquisition

End-of-life

Total impact on:

Global warming potential: CO2

Acidification

Eutrophication

Ozone depletion / creation

Toxicities (human, land, water)

Abiotic depletion


› Scope: Cradle-to-grave LCA of an LTE base station Main focus on raw materials & production RBS building block for network studies Only GHG presented here

› Functional unit:

Data presented: per RBS AND per year AND per

subscriber*year (subyear) As per defined configuration and use scenario

ASSESSMENT BOUNDARIES


Data Collected

Secondary data › RBS energy use › Electricity mixes / emission factors › Complementing production process

data › Materials acquisition process data › Production process data for simple

components

Primary data: › RBS configuration and hardware data › RBS material content › RBS parts production data › Assembly data › Transportation data › Electricity mixes / emission factors

Reused primary data: › Support activities (vendor and operator) › Site data › End of life treatment › ICT network data (adopted for 2014)


Pr

od

uc

tio

n p

ro

ce

ss

es

RBS LCA Data overview

Cable sets

Cabinet

Digital units

Power modules

Other modules

Radio units

Fan module

Mechanics

Electronics

Mechanics

Electronics

Mechanics

Electronics

RBS

Mechanics:

Electronics:

Climate module

Mechanics

Electronics

Primary data

Secondary data

Generic production process data

E/// Assembly

Cable production Process data

Cabinet production Process data

Climate production

Process data

Climate production

Process data

PCB, Memories, IC, ASICS production

Processes data

Power supply production

Processes data


processes

Ericsson mechanics Production

process data




processes

Power supply production

Processes data

Ericsson assembly process data

Mechanics:

Electronics:

Mechanics:

Electronics:

Ericsson mechanics Production

process data

Die casting Process data

Mechanics:

Electronics:


Parts production Raw material acquisition (incl extraction and processing)

Part cradle-to-gate

Primary data

Secondary data

RAW MATERIALS ACQUISITION & PARTS PRoDUCTION

Unspecified

Raw material processing

Raw material acquisition

Transport -Outbound

Electricity Other energy Fuels

Parts production (of e.g. IC, PBA, cables etc.)

Unspecified

Waste

Support activities Transport -Waste

Transport -Outbound


Data collection complexity Raw materials Acquisition

› Collection of primary materials content data very time consuming

› Use of secondary process data from LCA tool database

Data age Virgin / recycled ratios Yield information Meta data

Raw Materials in RBS

Known weight

Unknown weight


From Materials data to Process Models

› Mapping between materials data and models non-trivial task › Choices: One material – many processes

› Proxy data: One material – no processes

FE

cast iron part, DE, PE-GaBi, 2012-2015 mine, iron GLO, Ecoinvent 2000 Sinter, iron, at plant, GLO, Ecoinvent 1999-2002 turning, cast iron, conventional, average, RER, 2006-2007 milling, cast iron, average, RER, Ecoinvent, 2006-2007 drilling, conventional, cast iron, RER, Ecoinvent, 2006-2007

COPPER (METALLIC)

Copper sheet mix, EU-27, PE-GaBi, 12-15 copper product manufacturing, average metal working, RER, Ecoinvent, 06-07 copper, at regional storage, RER, Ecoinvent, 94-03 copper, primary , at refinery, GLO, Ecoinvent, 94-03

ZINC

zinc, primary, at regional storage, RER, Ecoinvent, 1994-2003 zinc, from combined metal production, at refinery, SE,Ecoinvent, 2004-2006 smelting,primary zinc production, GLO, Ecoinvent, 94-03, (p-agg)

PA 46 Nylon 6 granulate (PA 6), RER, PE-GaBi, 96-06 polyamid 46. is a semi-crystalline thermoplastic with very high thermal dimensional stability. Count as PA6


56%

44%

suppliers provided data

suppliers have not provideddata

› Primary data for production processes collection very time consuming!

› Below 60% answering rate

› Suppliers not used to LCA data requests

› Yield information often confidential

Data collection complexity Production processes


Supplier Data quality Production processes

› Supplier data combined for best part level quality › Secondary data from LCA tool used to fill data gaps

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

0 1 2 3 4 5

% S

uppl

iers

scale 0-5 (0:no data, 1: invalid data, 2: unreliable data, 3:aceptable data, 4: good data, 5: excellent data)

Supplier General Data Quality

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

0 1 2 3 4 5

% S

uppl

iers

scale 0:5 (0:no data, 1: invalid data, 2: unreliable data, 3:aceptable data, 4: good data, 5: excellent data)

Supplier Energy Data Quality

ETSI EE WS 2015, Sophia Antipolis | © Ericsson AB 2015 | 2015-05-29 | Page 11 *A case study on estimating future radio network energy consumption and CO2 emissions

RBS configuration, use and EoLT scenarios › Configuration

40 W RF power/ sector (2 TX, 20 W/antenna), 3 sectors/site 10 MHz bandwidth

› Materials based on Macro Indoor RBS 6201 HW

› Energy consumption according to (Frenger et al, 2013)*RF load 20%

+10% for site cooling

› Use stage emission factor for word average electricity

– energy supply chain and losses included

› EoLT Full recycling (best case) Recycling data reused

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/articleDetails.jsp?arnumber=6707825


0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Manufacturing and EoLT

0

2

4

6

8

10

0

20

40

60

80

100to

nne

CO

2e p

er s

ite a

nd li

fe ti

me

(10

yrs)

tonn

e C

O2e

per

site

and

yea

r

kg C

O2e

per

sub

scrip

tion

and

year

(8

00 s

ubsc

riptio

ns p

er s

ite)

Operation (Global average electricity)

RBS cabinet

RBS cabinet operation

Site equipment

Site equipment operation

Special scenario, high cooling requirements

(add-on)

Results for RBS site (life cycle)

Life time /year /subyear

Total RBS site

Total

Note! These results are only valid under the conditions applicable for the study


Manufacturing and EoLT

0

20

40

60

80

100

120to

nne

CO

2e p

er s

ite a

nd li

fe ti

me

(10

yrs)

Operation (Global average electricity)

RBS cabinet

RBS cabinet operation

Site equipment

Site equipment operation

Tower, housing and road

Top lights operation

Special scenario, high cooling requirements

(add-on)

Special scenario, individual large tower (add-on)

Results for RBS site WITH TOWER

Life time

Total RBS site

Total



0

0,1

0,2

0,3

0,4

0,5

0,6

Manufacturing

0

0,1

0,2

0,3

0,4

0,5

0

1

2

3

4

5to

nne

CO

2e p

er s

ite a

nd li

fe ti

me

(10

yrs)

tonn

e C

O2e

per

site

and

yea

r

kg C

O2e

per

sub

scrip

tion

and

year

(8

00 s

ubsc

riptio

ns p

er s

ite)

Total RBS cabinet

Raw materials

Mechanical and electro- mech. parts

PCBs and components,

excl. ICs

Ericsson own activities*

EoLT ICs

Transport related emissions

0

20

40

60

80

100

Total

RBS cabinet cradle-to-gate raw materials acquisition, production

RBS cabinet

Life time /year /subyear

Results based on average material production in EcoInvent/GaBi

Results based on only virgin material production

Results based on ”50/50 method”

Average customer transports

Additional emissions for 10 000 km by air



0

10

20

30

40

50

Manufacturing (including EoLT)

0

10

20

30

40

0

100

200

300

400to

nne

CO

2e p

er s

ite a

nd li

fe ti

me

(10

yrs)

tonn

e C

O2e

per

site

and

yea

r

kg C

O2e

per

sub

scrip

tion

and

year

(8

00 s

ubsc

riptio

ns p

er s

ite)

Operation (Global average electricity) Operation (other energy, e.g. travel)

Smartphone(s) RBS site Core nodes Operator activities

Data transm. IP core network

Data centers

Overall mobile broadband service Global average electricity scenario

RBS life time /year /subyear

3 year life time assumed

Based on TeliaSonera study (2010) scaled to 2014 traffic

Also including RBS site transmission



Summary › Assessment procedure:

LCA based on primary data is resource intensive Assumptions and choices inevitable Suppliers have limited experience in providing LCA information. LCA tool databases have insufficient metadata

› Results for assessed scenario: RBS site life cycle impact 70 tonnes CO2e

› 7 tonnes CO2e/year › 9 kg CO2e/subyear › About 80% operation, 20% embodied

Mobile broadband service equals 39 kg CO2e/subyear

› Future studies: more impact categories, broader use and EoL scenarios more sensitivity analysis



› Identification of opportunities to improve environmental performance

› Information to decisions-makers to assist their policy choices

› Selection of relevant indicators of environmental performance for monitoring

› Understanding of the potential impact of new services and solutions

› Understanding of improvements between product generations

LCA methodology primarily to be used for

Documents

Life cycle assessment of an LTE base station BASED ON Primary data