Comparative life cycle analysis of three types of indoor luminaries used in buildings

Abstract

This paper discusses the results of a comparative life cycle analysis of three types of luminaries commonly used today in artificial lighting of architectural and indoors buildings; comparing the environmental impacts to know how much quantitatively contribute to global warming, primarily by CO2 emissions to the atmosphere. The analysis was done through information derived of a Software simulation lifecycle product (GaBi®), particularly using the evaluation methodology called Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) that focuses primarily on assessing the environmental impacts associated with a product throughout its whole life, in accordance with the international ISO 14040 standard (concerning to methodology of Life Cycle Analysis). The results show that the power consumption of incandescent was 5.55 times the fluorescent lamp and 8 times the LED; the production phase, use and disposal phases of the incandescent lamp (49334.4 CO2e) in the example of the present study contributes to global warming 29.87 times more than fluorescent (1651.2 Kg. CO2e) and 146.82 times the LED (336 Kg. CO2e). We conclude that the LED luminaire is the best choice considering the whole entire life cycle of the product including the cost. On the other hand, if only the production phase is valued, the best option would be incandescent, but of course it would be a very limited parameter that must be taken into account all phases of the life cycle including analysis of the cost for each phase (production, use and maintenance and end of service life and disposal). Regarding the fluorescent luminaire could be the best option since there is a wide range of products where prices vary significantly and could be a good option for saving the proper selection of lighting equipment