A Comparative Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of Solar PV Modules Based on Types, Production Location and End-of-Life Recycling Scenarios

As declared in the European Green Deal, the decarbonization of the EU energy system is essential for achieving Europe’s climate neutrality targets, demanding a substantial expansion of renewable energy sources and the rapid phase-out of coal and gas. It is therefore essential that newly installed PV products within the EU are designed to avoid creating additional environmental burdens due to environmental impacts during production and at the end of life (EOL) of photovoltaic (PV) modules. This study presents a life cycle assessment (LCA) of sustainable/green PV module designs in terms of recyclability using advanced high-quality recycling technologies. It compares two product systems both based on mono c-Si PV technology and the glass–glass (G–G) module design: 1. Passivated Emitter and Rear Contact (PERC) and 2. Tunnel Oxide Passivated Contact (TOPCon) cell technologies, which are assessed under production scenarios in China and Germany, and two recycling scenarios (hypothetical high-recovery recycling and partial recycling) using inventory data from eco-invent and literature sources. The results across most impact categories show that the PERC and TOPCon module designs produced in Germany with high-recovery recycling as the end-of-life strategy exhibit lower impacts than those produced in China with partial recycling as the end-of-life strategy under the adopted assumptions such as electricity mix and end-of-life modelling choices for module-only impacts (excluding BOS components). The climate change results show that TOPCon cell design under high-recovery recycling yields 10.4% lower emissions than the PERC cell design under partial recycling in Germany and 9.7% lower in China. However, both module designs emit 26.6% and 27.2% less GHG emissions when produced in Germany compared to production in China, respectively, which is line with earlier studies. With the exception of human toxicity, both PERC and TOPCon cell technologies perform better in this study than previously reported in reviewed LCA studies, reflecting the use of more recent state-of-the-art industry data concerning manufacturing requirements. The sensitivity analysis carried out on the design changes and electricity grid mix available shows that any improvements in the design process and increases in renewable energy penetration into the grid corresponds to a proportional reduction in environmental impacts across all impact categories.