Importance of End-of-Life Cost for a Product Life Cycle in the Choice Between Copper and Aluminium

Abstract

A total cost accounting approach was used to analyse the suitability of copper and aluminium as winding material for transformers, using available data from the Ecoinvent database. It could be concluded that the use of recycled metal is a necessary requisite for sustainability. Using cost data for energy and materials and reasonable assumptions about costs for labour and interest for the metal supplier and the product manufacturer, the copper alternative turns out to be the better choice, especially when the expected increase in the prices of energy,
copper, and aluminium during life cycle is taken into account. When considering environmental cost, useful indicators are those that can be expressed in cost terms. With the Ecoindicator 99 indicator as the basis for estimating environmental cost, the aluminium alternative is better than the copper alternative. However, the contribution of the environmental cost to the total cost has minor importance when compared with the effect you get from the negative cost contribution from the end-of-life phase. Therefore, the copper alternative is the better choice in terms of least total cost in the application considered.

From the study it could also be concluded that the total cost accounting approach would be a valuable design tool, when comparing two design alternatives of a product functional unit to decide which of the two is the more favourable from a sustainability point of view.