Life-cycle assessment of photovoltaic systems

Abstract The present chapter is an overview about LCA (life-cycle assessment) of PV (photovoltaic) technology. Selected literature references are presented (based on certain criteria). A critical discussion is provided. The literature demonstrates that there are investigations for different types of PV technologies. Most of these references are about mono- and multicrystalline silicon and there are few LCA studies about other types of PV technologies (multijunction, copper indium gallium diselenide, cadmium telluride, perovskite, organic, etc.). In addition, most of the works examine embodied energy, energy payback time, CO 2 , and greenhouse gas emissions, and there are few LCA studies based on methods with midpoint and/or endpoint approaches. Furthermore, the literature shows that there are different factors which affect the environmental performance of a PV system such as the latitude and the climatic conditions, the electricity mix of a country (for certain environmental indicators), PV-cell material, the processes during material manufacturing phase, sunlight concentration, storage materials, recycling, and durability of the adopted materials.