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ORIGINAL RESEARCH
Environmental Impact Assessment
of the Photovoltaic Industry Based on LCA
1
State nuclear power planning and Design Institute, Haidian District, Beijing 100089, China
2
School of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University, Changping District,
Beijing 102206, China
Submission date: 2024-06-17
Final revision date: 2024-10-05
Acceptance date: 2025-02-15
Online publication date: 2025-03-26
Corresponding author
Yuze Zhang
School of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University, Changping District, Beijing 102206, China
School of Economics and Management, North China Electric Power University, Changping District, Beijing 102206, China
KEYWORDS
TOPICS
ABSTRACT
At present, the global energy crisis and environmental problems are worsening, and there is
an urgent need to use new energy sources to replace traditional fossil energy sources. Photovoltaic
(PV) power generation, as a primary clean energy source, has the potential to become a major energy
solution with sustainable development prospects and is suitable for future energy development.
Photovoltaic power generation is generally considered to be highly environmentally friendly. However,
from a life cycle perspective, PV is not “zero pollution”, and the PV industry is more or less likely
to produce pollution and cause a certain degree of damage to the ecological environment in terms
of the manufacturing of components and equipment, operation, and maintenance; current research has
not yet carried out a comprehensive evaluation of the environmental impact assessment of photovoltaic
power generation. Therefore, this paper focuses on the photovoltaic industry and the environmentally
sound related industry and combines the basis of the life cycle as an entry point, research, and analysis
of the photovoltaic industry full life cycle of the various stages of the photovoltaic power generation
industry produced by the pollutants for a comprehensive evaluation, including carbon emissions,
nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, hazardous wastes, and other 11 kinds of pollutants. Take the polysilicon
photovoltaic power generation system as an example to carry out empirical analysis; according
to the statistical results, the contribution analysis and sensitivity analysis of the life cycle results
show that the stage of photovoltaic power generation with the greatest environmental impact is the
production and construction stage of the photovoltaic system. The consumables with the greatest impact
on the environment are electricity and aluminum. This paper systematically researches the impact
of the whole life cycle of the PV industry on the environment, which to a certain extent fills the gaps
of related research, provides analytical methods and theoretical guidance for a deeper understanding
of the environmental impact of the PV industry, and the results of the analysis can provide suggestions
for the direction of the development of PV power generation.
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
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