Life cycle assessment-electricity supply using SF/sub 6/ technology

Whereas there are known technical and economical advantages of using SF/sub 6/ technology in electricity supply systems, the potential environmental effects of applying this technology have not been quantified in detail up to now. From this background, a comparative life cycle assessment (LCA) on the supply of electricity using different switchgear technology has been carried out, which showed the following main results: (1) already on the level of switchgear bays the use of SF/sub 6/-technology results in improvement of most of the assessment criteria considered. For bays with a high loading and low SF/sub 6/ losses even the total contribution to global warming can be decreased compared to non-SF/sub 6/ systems; (2) for an electricity supply grid of a city with 130,000 inhabitants, the use of SF/sub 6/-technology showed to be favourable in all environmental aspects studied compared to conventional SF/sub 6/-free-technology; and (3) SF/sub 6/-technology provides particular flexibility in the basic design and in case of extension or re-arrangements of electricity supply grids associated with environmental advantages. The study has been performed and critically reviewed according to ISO 14040.