CYCLEWIND focuses on the environmental sustainability assessment of wind power from a life cycle perspective. Currently, there is a lack of a consistent assessment approach and therefore a lack of comparability and transparency among environmental life cycle assessments (LCA) of wind power. Further, there is limited data availability while the existing life cycle inventory databases are rather outdated. The importance to harmonise LCA of wind power is specifically prominent in tender processes for new offshore wind projects as well as in future offshore wind lease rounds, where environmental impacts determined by LCAs are increasingly being included as a requirement. CYCLEWIND will focus its efforts on these challenge areas, facilitate coordination and collectively work on the development of a harmonised approach for LCA of wind power. 

The primary objective of this Task is to provide a harmonised framework for LCA of electricity generation from wind energy, enabling consistent and transparent LCA results with increased comparability for sustainable long-term decision support.  

CYCLEWIND will enable the collaboration with other IEA Tasks, specifically with the IEA Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme Task 12, where a detailed guideline for a harmonised approach to the performance of LCAs of PV power systems has been developed. There can further be relevant collaborations with other IEA Wind TCP Tasks such as Task 45, 42 and 34.