Abstract
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is an extremely useful tool to assess the environmental impacts of a solar photovoltaic system throughout its entire life. This tool can help in making sustainable decisions. A solar PV system does not have any operational emissions as it is free from fossil fuel use during its operation. However, considerable amount of energy is used to manufacture and transport the components (e.g. PV panels, batteries, charge regulator, inverter, supporting structure, etc.) of the PV system. This study aims to perform a comprehensive and independent life cycle assessment of a 3.6 kWp solar photovoltaic system in Bangladesh. The primary energy consumption, resulting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (CH4, N2O, and CO2), and energy payback time (EPBT) were evaluated over the entire life cycle of the photovoltaic system. The batteries and the PV modules are the most GHG intensive components of the system. About 31.90% of the total energy is consumed to manufacture the poly-crystalline PV modules. The total life cycle energy use and resulting GHG emissions were found to be 76.27 MWhth and 0.17 kg-CO2eq/kWh, respectively. This study suggests that 5.34 years will be required to generate the equivalent amount of energy which is consumed over the entire life of the PV system considered. A sensitivity analysis was also carried out to see the impact of various input parameters on the life cycle result. The other popular electricity generation systems such as gas generator, diesel generator, wind, and Bangladeshi grid were compared with the PV system. The result shows that electricity generation by solar PV system is much more environmentally friendly than the fossil fuel-based electricity generation. ©2019. CBIORE-IJRED. All rights reserved
Highlights
With massive effect of fossil fuel use on the environment and the continuous declination of nonrenewable energy sources, it has become an excruciatingly important factor to focus on the renewable energy sources for a sustainable and safe future (Baky et al, 2017; Rahman et al 2015; Rahman et al 2016)
Generating power from photovoltaic (PV) systems is free from fossil fuel use and does not emit greenhouse gases (GHGs) during operation
It is important to mention that we have assumed 0.5% reduction in electricity generation each year starting from year 2 of the project (Desideri et al, 2012)
Summary
With massive effect of fossil fuel use on the environment and the continuous declination of nonrenewable energy sources, it has become an excruciatingly important factor to focus on the renewable energy sources for a sustainable and safe future (Baky et al, 2017; Rahman et al 2015; Rahman et al 2016). Many countries have presented policy to endorse the installation of new renewable source plants in order to reach the Kyoto protocol targets, and in most of the cases greater focus has been on the solar photovoltaic cells (Rahman et al, 2016). A considerable amount of energy is consumed in the manufacturing and transportation of the solar panels and the balance of plant (BOS) components. A considerable amount of energy is used in the decommissioning phase of the plant
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