Perspectives on life cycle analysis of solar technologies with emphasis on production in India

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted the solar power industry, business, and supply chain for 2019–2021, and installations are falling behind the mission plan. However, Indian PV manufacturers see it as a chance to engage in solar manufacturing to establish a competitive, sustainable, and robust domestic solar industry instead of import-based installations. Given the country's current environmental concerns, green and sustainable local manufacturing is the only viable alternative. By conducting a life cycle assessment (LCA), this study compared the environmental impacts generated by the five most promising photovoltaic technologies-mono-silicon, polysilicon, copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS), cadmium telluride (CdTe), and passivated emitter and rear contact (PERC) solar modules considering manufacturing in India. The study utilizes the ReCiPe method supported by Ecoinvent 3 databases and Simapro V9.0 software, and the functional unit for the data collection is in ‘per square meter’, which is later converted to ‘per kWh’ standard for comparison with the existing studies. The system boundary selected is from cradle to gate. The results demonstrate that cadmium telluride (CdTe) is the best technology for Indian climatic conditions in terms of environmental impact, with a global warming potential of 0.015 kg CO2 eq/kWh, stratospheric ozone depletion of 5.41E-09 kg CFC11 eq/kWh, human carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic toxicity of 6.67E-04 kg 1,4-DCB/kWh and 1.48E-02 kg 1,4-DCB/kWh, respectively and fine particulate matter formation of 3.96E-05 kg PM 2.5 eq/kWh assuming a lifetime of 25 years for these modules. CIGS follows CdTe in almost every environmental impact category.