A life cycle assessment model for quantification of environmental footprints of a 3.6 kWp photovoltaic system in Bangladesh

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 duri...

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Main Authors: Rahman, Md. Mustafizur (Author), Alam, Chowdhury Sadid (Author), Ahsan, TM Abir (Author)
Format: EJournal Article
Published: Center of Biomass & Renewable Energy, Diponegoro University, 2019-06-13.
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042 |a dc 
100 1 0 |a Rahman, Md. Mustafizur  |e author 
100 1 0 |e contributor 
700 1 0 |a Alam, Chowdhury Sadid  |e author 
700 1 0 |a Ahsan, TM Abir  |e author 
245 0 0 |a A life cycle assessment model for quantification of environmental footprints of a 3.6 kWp photovoltaic system in Bangladesh 
260 |b Center of Biomass & Renewable Energy, Diponegoro University,   |c 2019-06-13. 
500 |a https://ejournal.undip.ac.id/index.php/ijred/article/view/21618 
520 |a 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 
540 |a https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0 
546 |a eng 
690 |a Life cycle assessment (LCA), solar photovoltaic (PV), energy payback time (EPBT), greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, electricity generation 
655 7 |a info:eu-repo/semantics/article  |2 local 
655 7 |a info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion  |2 local 
655 7 |2 local 
786 0 |n International Journal of Renewable Energy Development; Vol 8, No 2 (2019): July 2019; 113-118 
786 0 |n 2252-4940 
787 0 |n https://ejournal.undip.ac.id/index.php/ijred/article/view/21618/pdf 
856 4 1 |u https://ejournal.undip.ac.id/index.php/ijred/article/view/21618/pdf  |z Get Fulltext