• Energy Research
• 2025-2025close
• 11. Sustainability close
• EU close

AbstractAs the bones and muscles of our built environment, engineering structures support all kind of societal activities. However, they consume huge amounts of resources and significantly contribute to impact on our environment. Structural design codes play an important matter in this regard since they regulate the use of materials by use of prescribed decision rules. These relatively simple and generalized rules offer significant potential for improvement. Grounded on risk-based optimization approaches, this paper explores this potential in connection with the design of reinforced concrete floor systems. Assuming a large variety of realistic design situations, representative sets of such members are defined and designed according to the semi-probabilistic safety concept in the Eurocodes. The benefits of a risk-informed structural design compared to the use of these standardized decision rules are demonstrated in terms of material consumption and CO2 emissions.

In the last decade, the manufacturing capacity of silicon, the dominant PV technology, has increasingly been concentrated in China. This has led to PV cost reduction of approximately 80%, while, at the same time, posing risks to PV supply chain security. Recent advancements of novel perovskite tandem PV technologies as an alternative to traditional silicon-based PV provide opportunities for diversification of the PV manufacturing capacity and for increasing the GHG emission benefit of solar PV. Against this background, we estimate the current and future cost-competitiveness and GHG emissions of a set of already commercialized as well as emerging PV technologies for different production locations (China, USA, EU), both at residential and utility-scale. We find EU and USA-manufactured thin-film tandems to have 2 to 4% and 0.5 to 2% higher costs per kWh and 37 to 40%and 32 to 35% less GHG emissions per kWh at residential and utility-scale, respectively. Our projections indicate that they will also retain competitive costs (up to 2% higher)and a 20% GHG emissions advantage per kWh in 2050.