Environmental footprints of current and future electric battery charging and electric vehicles in Poland

This paper presents the results of environmental footprints of the life cycle of electric passenger cars, with a current and future electric battery charging analysis in Poland. The shares of the sources of electricity generation in the energy systems of Poland in the years 2015-2050 were used to perform the chosen environmental footprints of current and future electric car battery charging. This article discusses the water and carbon footprints of electric passenger cars in Poland. The carbon footprint was determined using the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) method. The water footprint was calculated using the Hoekstra method. The environmental footprints were provided by the SimaPro 8 package with the Ecoinvent 3 database. The obtained results showed that the carbon footprint and water footprints of electric passenger cars in Poland are primarily related to the type of electricity used to charge electric car batteries. The results showed that current and future carbon footprint indicators of electric cars in Poland are lower than those for petrol cars, but the water footprint indicators of electric cars are higher than those for petrol cars. In the case of petrol cars, the main determinant of the carbon footprint is direct emission during the exploitation stage and the main determinant of the water footprint is car production.