Abstract
This work provides economic and environmental analyses of transportation-related impacts of different photovoltaic (PV) module technologies at their end-of-life (EoL) phase. Our results show that crystalline silicon (c-Si) modules are the most economical PV technology (United States Dollars (USD) 2.3 per 1 m2 PV module (or 0.87 ¢/W) for transporting in the United States for 1000 km). Furthermore, we found that the financial costs of truck transportation for PV modules for 2000 km are only slightly more than for 1000 km. CO2-eq emissions associated with transport are a significant share of the EoL impacts, and those for copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) PV modules are always higher than for c-Si and CdTe PV. Transportation associated CO2-eq emissions contribute 47%, 28%, and 40% of overall EoL impacts of c-Si, CdTe, and CIGS PV wastes, respectively. Overall, gasoline-fueled trucks have 65–95% more environmental impacts compared to alternative transportation options of the diesel and electric trains and ships. Finally, a hotspot analysis on the entire life cycle CO2-eq emissions of different PV technologies showed that the EoL phase-related emissions are more significant for thin-film PV modules compared to crystalline silicon PV technologies and, so, more environmentally friendly material recovery methods should be developed for thin film PV.
Highlights
The solar photovoltaic (PV) market is growing quickly, and predictions show that new PV systems installations reached 98GW in 2019, pushing the cumulative solar capacity to 586GW globally [1].Considering a circular economy perspective, the improvement in solar energy usage is essential [2,3,4].Still, the increase in PV installations creates a substantial amount of new waste, which may account for approximately 8.0 million tons per year by 2030 [5]
In assessing the recycling of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) PV modules, we modeled the “innovative recycling” method referred by Rocchetti and Beolchini [22]
The smaller values were chosen as the limiting factors and, we found that one truck can carry 893 crystalline silicon (c-Si), 1155 cadmium telluride (CdTe), and 644 CIGS PV modules
Summary
Considering a circular economy perspective, the improvement in solar energy usage is essential [2,3,4]. The increase in PV installations creates a substantial amount of new waste, which may account for approximately 8.0 million tons per year by 2030 [5]. Sustainable technologies such as PV depend on the constant progress of their end-of-life (EoL) management [6,7]. Recycling is one of the sustainable EoL management options that adds to the environmental benefits and can further enhance market support for solar energy.
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