Life cycle assessment (LCA) has become a main tool of ecodesign(Finnveden et al., 2009). LCA considers the product from cradle-to- grave and across environmental impact categories. This avoidsshifting the problem from one impact category or supply-chain part
to another (e.g. where a shift in materials in manufacturing may
cause problems in recycling) (Finnveden et al., 2009). LCA is
increasingly being used to analyze the components of power grids
(Bumby et al., 2010; Jorge et al., 2012). Based on the results the life
cycle impacts of infrastructure and power transmission become
more important, as the overall emissions of electricity production
decrease. The effects of including nanomaterials to power grid
components have not been investigated.