Abstract
Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) is a key tool for evaluating the environmental impacts of electricity generation technologies, including wind power. However, current LCA practices across academia and the wind industry are fragmented, with results varying due to differences in modelling choices, data availability, system boundaries, and inventory databases. This inconsistency hampers comparability across technologies and geographies, and limits the utility of LCA in policy-making, tendering processes, and sustainability reporting.
The IEA WIND Task 60 – CYCLEWIND addresses this challenge by developing a harmonised framework for LCA of wind power. Building on the outcomes of the IEA Wind Topical Expert Meeting TEM#105, which gathered thirty experts from 11 countries, CYCLEWIND emphasises the importance of stakeholder collaboration. By engaging actors from academia, industry, and government, the task builds an intersectoral platform for information exchange and consensus-building. This collaborative approach is essential for developing guidelines that are both scientifically sound and applicable. Therefore, CYCLEWIND aims to improve transparency, consistency, and comparability of LCA results across the wind energy sector. The task is co-chaired by SINTEF Ocean and Zurich University of Applied Sciences and runs from 2025 to 2028.
Key objectives of CYCLEWIND include: (1) producing methodological guidance for harmonised LCA at the plant, turbine, and technology levels; (2) aligning with existing LCA standards; (3) supporting the integration of LCA aspects into energy policy and auction design, including non-price criteria; (4) enabling digitalised data exchange platforms for primary data collection across the wind energy supply chain; and (5) providing state-of-the-art data and case studies that demonstrate the methodological guidelines produced by CYCLEWIND.
In its initial stage, the project has identified several key challenges in current LCA practices, such as lack of consistent approaches, limited access to primary data, confidentiality concerns, technological diversity, geographical diversity from one site to another and the absence of standardised reference cases. To address these, CYCLEWIND proposes a set of harmonisation guidance that will be applied to different LCA use cases—site-specific, product-specific, and technology-level assessments.
Ultimately, CYCLEWIND will deliver a harmonised LCA framework that supports long-term decision-making in wind energy development. It will facilitate transparent environmental profiling of wind technologies, enhance the credibility of LCA results, and enable their effective use in policy instruments and market mechanisms. The task will also explore the implications of different end-of-life approaches and discuss potential opportunities to capture aspects of material efficiency within the context of LCA.