Combining region-specific supply chains with geo-located PV electricity production for Life Cycle Assessment of worldwide crystalline silicon photovoltaic systems in ENVI-PV 2.0

Abstract : The development of efficient future energy mixes needs the support of decision tools providing objective information on environmental impacts of existing and emerging systems. In life cycle assessments, environmental impacts during all stages of the life cycle of a product or a service are systematically inventoried and analyzed. Existing tools giving a large audience access to environmental results based on reported life cycle inventories of photovoltaic systems are mainly based on average models that fail to account for geographical dependence in the manufacture stage. The online tool presented here consists of an improved version of the Web service ENVI-PV, developed in the framework of Task 12 of the International Energy Agency Photovoltaic Power Systems Program. ENVI-PV v2.0 (http://viewer.webservice-energy.org/envi-pv_v2.0/) adds a new feature to allow the evaluation of dependencies of environmental results on the manufacturing region of crystalline silicon photovoltaic modules, while providing a selection of environmental impact categories based on recent advances in line with Task 12. The results show the decisive role of manufacturer selection on the environmental performance of photovoltaic systems and the importance of accounting for geographical factors in the environmental assessment of these technologies.