Life cycle assessment of storage systems: the case study of a sodium/nickel chloride battery

This study assesses the energy and environmental impacts of sodium/nickel chloride batteries, one of the emerging battery technologies for energy storage and smart grids. The analysis was conducted using the Life Cycle Assessment methodology according to the standards of the ISO 14040 series. The study system was one sodium/nickel cell battery providing electric storage for a photovoltaic system, and the manufacturing, operation, and end-of-life steps were analysed. The results indicated that the operation step has the greatest energy impact (55-70% of the total), with the manufacturing step, particularly cell manufacturing, contributing the greatest environmental impact (>60% of the total). This paper makes two original contributions: 1) it presents one of the first LCA analyses of sodium/nickel chloride batteries with the aim of identifying the energy and environmental impacts of this technology; 2) it provides a set of energy and environmental outcomes identifying the "hot spots" of the selected technology that must be carefully considered to upgrade the current efficiency and sustainability of electric storage device standards. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.