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Most life cycle assessment (LCA) of crystalline silicon photovoltaics (c-Si PV) modules are based on public life cycle inventory (LCI) datasets with limited use of actual manufacturing data. We collect and calculate the amount of material used for production of different PV modules installed in the U.S. to analyze the trend in material intensity over and compare the numbers among various tier manufacturers and module reliability. Furthermore, results of LCA models using the public LCI data and the actual manufacturing material (specifically aluminum) data are compared to investigate the impact of material use on the life-cycle impact assessment of c-Si PV modules. Results show a trend of material use decrease over time and indicate a potential connection between material usage and the manufacturer tier – better manufacturers tend to use more materials for modules production which may lead to higher quality performance. Additional work will complete the life cycle assessment, explore more materials, and fill the data gap of PV modules produced by different manufacturer tiers in different years.
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Comparing the carbon footprint of monocrystalline silicon solar modules manufactured in China and the United States
This work discusses the life-cycle impact of manufacturing silicon monocrystalline (c-Si) (PV) panels in the United States compared to China. We compare the results using country average and regional data accounting for the location of each manufacturing stage. The carbon footprint based on the national average for the USA is 515 g CO 2 /kWp compared to 740 g CO 2 /kWp for China. Producing c-Si modules in China from US polysilicon reduces the carbon footprint by 9.5% compared to Chinese modules. Manufacturing modules entirely in the US modules could reduce the carbon footprint by 30%. PV modules supply chain is in regions with slower decarbonization than the rest of the country for both US and China, slowing down the reduction in carbon footprint for c-Si in the future.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1801785
- PAR ID:
- 10378312
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- 2021 IEEE 48th Photovoltaic Specialists Conference (PVSC)
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 1 to 3
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript
- Conference Paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1109/PVSC43889.2021.9518632
