Life cycle analysis of organic photovoltaic technologies

Abstract

Organic solar cells, both in the hybrid dye sensitized technology and in the full organic polymeric technology, are a promising alternative that could supply solar electricity at a cost much lower than other more conventional inorganic photovoltaic technologies. This paper presents a life cycle analysis of the laboratory production of a typical bulk heterojunction organic solar cell and compares this result with those obtained for the industrial production of other photovoltaic technologies. Also a detailed material inventory from raw materials to final photovoltaic module is presented, allowing us to identify potential bottlenecks in a future supply chain for a large industrial output. Even at this initial stage of laboratory production, the energy payback time and CO 2 emission factor for the organic photovoltaic technology is of the same order of other inorganic photovoltaic technologies, demonstrating that there is plenty of room for improvement if the fabrication procedure is optimized and scaled up to an industrial process.

Off-grid solar photovoltaic systems for rural electrification and emissions mitigation in India

“…If manufacturing processes can be improved and lifetimes can be extended to five years the LCUE falls to $0.74/kWh, similar to current technologies. Furthermore, if the transition from lab-scale to commercial production results in a reduction of embedded energy comparable to that which OPV experienced [30,59], the carbon intensity of the system falls to 270 gCO 2eq /kWh. An increase in the scale of manufacture of perovskite cells could provide the opportunity for this emerging technology to be used in applications such as this.…”

Quantitative Comparison of Organic Photovoltaic Bulk Heterojunction Photostability Under Laser Illumination

“…2 Other designs have been reported. 2,3 The morphology and order of the active layer affect OPV performance.…”

“…2 Other designs have been reported. 2,3 The morphology and order of the active layer affect OPV performance. 4,5 A bound electron− hole pair (exciton) is created upon absorption of light by the donor.…”

“…Donor/acceptor domains of the size of the exciton diffusion length, typically less than 10 nm, are essential to prevent the majority of the excitons from decaying. 6 Morphology affects, among other properties, electronic defects (e.g., distortions in the geometry of sp 2 carbon covalent bonds in the π-conjugated polymers' backbone), charge mobility (i.e., electron transport efficiency), and absorption (e.g., shift to longer wavelengths with increasing polymer order). 7−9 Performance metrics for OPV devices typically focus on how efficiently a constructed device converts solar radiation into electricity.…”

Systematic Assessment of Carbon Emissions from Renewable Energy Access to Improve Rural Livelihoods

“…Life cycle analysis (LCA) evaluates environmental impacts of products and services and has been used to examine often overlooked carbon-related aspects of energy systems; most notably, it has been applied to photovoltaic technology (for silicon [22][23][24][25][26]; thin film [27,28]; and organic technologies, [29,30]). LCA keeps track of different components and identifies the most energy intensive and environmentally costly materials, and production processes, installation, maintenance and decommissioning.…”