The life cycle assessment shows that most of the environmental impacts of an elevator are due to the electricity used for operating the elevator during its long lifetime use. Electricity is consumed in moving passengers and goods, illumination and control of the equipment. However, the energy consumption depends on the speed, load and travel distance of the elevator. In a high-rise building, 85–90 percent of the energy of an elevator is consumed to transport people up and down. Therefore, in high-rise buildings KONE has focused on developing innovative regenerative systems that can recover up to 35 percent of the total energy used by the elevator. The recovered energy can be converted and used as a source for a building’s energy needs, such as lighting.
In a lower building with less frequent travels and smaller loads, up to 70–80 percent of the total electricity can be consumed by car lighting, control panel, doors, fans and signalization. Thus, for lower rise and smaller loads elevators, stand-by energy saving solutions are significant sources of electricity savings.
