Abstract
Photovoltaic technologies can have a role in climate change mitigation being routed in sustainability if the decisions are taken wisely. Photovoltaic systems inherently avoid CO2 emissions while running since they replace a share of fossil sources in the energy mix of the country where they are installed. Taking into account that the modules can be manufactured and installed in 138 different countries and that every country has a particular ambient conditions, Life Cycle Assessment methodology has been used to evaluate 1kWp of the three different photovoltaic technologies in order to find the best geographical combination manufacturer-installation, which is the geographical allocation that providing the highest reduction of CO2 emissions per kWp of installed PV capacity. This combined evaluation of the technology and the geographical allocation will provide the end users with additional information and thus, the greenest decision can be taken. Ethiopia, Mozambique, Zambia and Iceland are found to be ideal places for photovoltaic manufacture while Botswana, Turkmenistan, Kosovo, South Africa and Australia are the best locations where the PV systems can be installed, among others.
Lucía Serrano-Luján
Associate Professor
Lucía Serrano-Luján is an Associate Professor in the Department of Computer Science. Her research field is multidisciplinary. She developed a Life Cycle Assessment methodology to assess renewable energies and applied AI to their data. Her main goal is to impact energy-related materials production and find a more sustainable way to develop them. She has applied LCA to reduce graphene oxide and perovskites solar cells, build integrated photovoltaics, etc.