Solar radiation is a source for renewable energy. One possible use is the production of electricity in photovoltaic appliances (PV). The aim of our projects is to provide up-to-date data on the environmental impacts of electricity production with photovoltaic appliances in Switzerland and Europe. The data for photovoltaics have been updated by ESU-services with financial contribution of the European Photovoltaics Industry Association and the Swiss Federal Authority for Energy.

Data have been collected in this project directly from manufacturers and were provided by other research projects. Life cycle assessment (LCA) studies from different authors are considered for the assessment. The information is used to elaborate a life cycle inventory from cradle to grave for the PV-electricity production in 3kWp plants in the year 2005. The inventory is investigated for single- and multicrystalline cells, ribbon-silicon, amorphous-silicon, CdTe and CIS thin film cells. Environmental impacts i.e. due to the infrastructure for all production stages are also considered in the inventory.

The data are published together with ecoinvent data v2.1. The latest update of photovoltaic data (v2.2+) can be downloaded here.

The project was financed by the following institutions:

• Swiss Federal Office of Energy (Bundesamt für Energie), BfE, CH, Program Photovoltaik
• European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) , BE

Posters and presentations for the LCA of photovoltaiks

Rolf Frischknecht, Matthias Stucki, Karin Flury & René Itten (2013) Life cycle assessment of amorphous and micromorphous PV modules.

Jungbluth N., Stucki M., Flury K., Frischknecht R. and Buesser S., 2012, Life Cycle Inventories of Photovoltaics. ESU-services Ltd., Uster, CH.

Stucki M., Frischknecht R. and Flury K. (2012) The Influence of Market Shifts and Technology Developments on the Environmental Impacts of Photovoltaic Electricity in Central Europe. ESU-services Ltd. 27th European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition, 24.-28. September 2012, Frankfurt, Germany

Jungbluth N., Tuchschmid M. and de Wild-Scholten M. J. (2008) Life Cycle Assessment for Photovoltaics: Update for ecoinvent data v2.0

Niels Jungbluth, Energy supply: Photovoltaics. 2nd international ecoinvent meeting, 14.3.2008, ETH Lausanne

Final report 2007 for the BFE with a discussion of the results.

First results of ecoinvent data v2.0 have been presented on conferences. (Paper / Slides)

Jungbluth, N. 2005: “Life Cycle Assessment for Crystalline Photovoltaics in the Swiss ecoinvent Database.” In Prog. Photovolt. Res. Appl., Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Jungbluth, N., Bauer, C., Dones, R., Frischknecht, R. 2004: “Life Cycle Assessment for Emerging Technologies: Case Studies for Photovoltaic and Wind Power.” In Int J LCA Vol. 10 (1)