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Energy Procedia 105 (2017) 3320 – 3325

The 8th International Conference on Applied Energy – ICAE2016

A Regional Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment Approach and its

Application on Solar Photovoltaic
Tianqi Li*, Anthony Paul Roskilly, Yaodong Wang

Sir Joseph Swan Center for Energy Research,Newcastle University, Newcastle NE1 7RU, UK

Abstract

This paper proposes a sustainability assessment method which incorporating life cycle approach and sustainability theory.
Northeast region of England is chosen as a case study. The assessment examines the sustainability of regional solar photovoltaic
deployment in three categories: techno-economic, environmental and social impacts.
© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
© 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of ICAE
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 8th International Conference on Applied Energy.
Keywords: Solar photovoltaic, Life Cycle Assessment, regional, techno-economic and sustainability assessment, social and environmental impact

1. Introduction
The term “ sustainable development” was first introduced by the Brudtland Report [1], it recognized clear links
with many concerning issues between present and future generations such as poverty, environmental quality, equity
etc. ; it was then generally accepted that sustainable development should be supported by social, environmental and
economic growth, also known as the “triple button line” [2]. Moreover, the concept of sustainability reminded public
of the cause-effect chain of every decision and action, whether it is made privately or collectively, it affects both
current and future generations, from micro to macro scale; especially with increasing globalization in recent years,
where societies across the world are ever closely connected. Sustainability is not a linear phenomenon, hence
sustainability evaluation should consider the impacts of an action or decision throughout its entire life cycle. Life cycle
analysis (LCA), which is also referred to as “cradle-to-grave” assessment aims to examine the environmental impact
of a product throughout its life cycle have been practiced since 1970s; however the transition from environmental
sustainability to broader concept of life cycle sustainability is yet accomplished till today. For instance, conventional
LCA does not consider micro social and economic interactions; while on the other hand these factors are determinative
for whether a technology will be deployed and sustained in a given region.
This study proposes a novel and wholistic method that examines sustainability of electricity options at regional
scale using LCA as a tool. A regional-based approach can effectively establish electricity generation options that both
serves the need of local community and sustainably utilize available natural resources. In addition, stakeholders and
decision makers can be informed of sustainability issues that are generally neglected on a national level. Solar
photovoltaic (PV) technology and its deployment in the Northeast region of England is selected as a sample to
demonstrate application of the proposed method.

2. A framework for assessing sustainability of solar PV

* Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 (0) 191 208 6000.

E-mail address: Tianqi.li@ncl.ac.uk

1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 8th International Conference on Applied Energy.
doi:10.1016/j.egypro.2017.03.757
 Tianqi Li et al. / Energy Procedia 105 (2017) 3320 – 3325 3321

Table 1 Sustainability assessment framework and assesment outcome for solar PV In proposed model,
electricity generated is

7.2 person-years/MWh
1.826 ‫ כ‬10ିଽkg SO2/kWh

9.49 ‫ כ‬10ିଽkg PO43- eq.

1.43 ‫ כ‬10ିସkg CO2/kWh
regarded as a product, and

£121.71£/MWh

3.02 ‫ כ‬10ି଻kg DCB- eq.

£92.51/MWh

£29.20/MWh
9.1% -10.5%

૙ ࢓૛ -years/MWh
13-21 Years

47% -54%
0.29-1.07
Total

2.5-5.8
sustainability performance

n/a

x
of this product is examined

/kWh
/kWh
throughout its entire life
g x cycle with a group of

0
-

-
-

-
Decommissionin
indicators. The proposed
model and results of its

72.9
Assessment Result

Waste Disposal
application on solar PV are

0
-

-
demonstrated in Table 1.
Life Cycle Stages Accounted for

Evaluation parameters are

£29.2/M
9.80%

£121.81/MWh

51%
Wh

Operation

0
0

0
-

-
divided into three

80%
£92.51/
MWh

0.68
Construction 17
categories to represent the

0
-

-
three pillars of

0.006 ‫ כ‬10ିଽkg

DCB- eq. /kWh

9.21 ‫ כ‬10ିଽkg
1.43 ‫ כ‬10ିସkg
sustainability. This

1.6 ‫ כ‬10ିଽkg

PO43- eq.
CO2/kWh

SO2/kWh

7.2
Manufacturing

0
-
-

-
methodology is further

/kWh
developed from previous
2.65

3 ‫ כ‬10ି଻kg DCB-
work carried out by author

PO43- eq. /kWh

0.274 ‫ כ‬10ିଽkg
Processing
2.45 ‫ כ‬10ି଻kg

1.82 ‫ כ‬10ିଽkg
extraction&
CO2/kWh
x

0
-

-
SO2/kWh
[3]. Indicators listed in the
eq. /kWh
Material

framework are indentifed

g
from both literature survey
x

x
-

-
-

-
-

Decommissionin
and stakeholder
consultation. The
Life Cycle Stages Accounted for

Waste Disposal
x

x
-

-
-

-
-

indicators were selected

Operation following principles
x

x
-

-
-

concluded from data

Assessment Framework

Processing
extraction&
quality criteria stated by
ISO 14040 standard †:
x

x
-

-
-
-

-
-

Material

Construction
x No double counting
x

x
x

x
-

x
-

The indicators must

be quantifiable
kg CO2 eq./KW

݉ଶ-years/MWh

person/GWh
Rating
£/kWh

£/kWh

£/kWh

£/kWh

Years

x Feasibility of
years
Unit

%
-

application
Operation and maintenance

x
Eutrophication Potential
Acidification Potential (kg
Global Warming Potential

Human Toxicity Potential

Easiness to
Greenfield Landuse (m2-
Decommissioning Cost

Energy Payback Period

Recyclability of input
Total levelised cost

Bill Reduction Rate

Spending on Local
(kg DCB- eq. /kWh
(kg CO2 eq. /kWh)
Profitability Index

local Employment
Capacity Factor

Payback Period

SO2eq./kWh)

understand, so that the

years/MWh)
Capital Costs
Indicator

Suppliers
materials

PO43- eq. /kWh)

costs

indicator is useful to
decision makers and
understandable to the
Acidification Potential

public
Material Recyclability
Energy Consumption
Sustainability Issues

Life Cycle Cost of

Local Community
Global Warming

Human Toxicity

Eutrophication

Fuel Poverty
Profitability
Generation
Reliability

Potential

Potential

Landuse

Imapcts

2.1. Life Cycle of Solar PV

The solar PV system

Economic Environmental Social
included in this research is
4kwp wall mounted system
Sustainability Assessment Categories

on slanted roof with mono-

crystalline panels, since
this is the most common
type of installation in the
Northeast region. Five
Figure 1 Life Cycle Stages of Solar PV life cycle stages including raw material extraction, manufacture of panels and stages of life cycle of solar
electrical equipment, installation of the energy system, operation and decommissioning. PV is considered in this
study, including: raw material aquisation,manufacturing,installation/construction, operation and decommissioning.A

†
ISO 14040 is international standard for life cycle assessment studies
3322 Tianqi Li et al. / Energy Procedia 105 (2017) 3320 – 3325

PV system has 25-30 years of maunfacturer guaranteed life time; after the guaranteed life time solar PV is still able to
function with reduced efficiency, thus decommissioning costs is not considered in this study. To ensure results are
representative, an upper and lower range of data is applied where available, and in other cases average and/or middle
range estimates are used. The components that are assessed includes photovoltaic panel, mounting components required.
Functional unit is 1 kWh electricity generated.
Table2 Capacity Factors of Solar PV
2.2. Techno-economic Sustainability Annual Capact iy Table 3 Life Cycle Cost of Solar PV
Yield(kWh) Fact or (%) Capital O&M Carbon
Discount Fuel Cost LEC(£/M
High 920 10.5 Cost(£/M Cost(£/M Cost(£/M
Rate (£/MWh) Wh)
2.2.1. Reliability Average 860 9.8
Wh) Wh) Wh)

Capacity factor is the radio of a Low 800 9.1 3% 92.51 29.2 0 0 121.71

plant’s actual output compare to its

Table 4 Payback Period of Solar PV
potential maximum output at full production capacity. This ratio
Costs (£)
varies from time to time, also depending on availability of resources. Annual Payback
Capital O&M costs Levelised Yield Period
The annual electricity yield from PV systems depends on the incident Costs (£) (£) Cost (£)
sunlight and panel efficiency. Annual yield for the Northeast region Lower Bound £6,000 £1,000 £7,000 3680 13

ranges from 800- 920 kWh/kWp[4]. Capacity factor can be estimated Upper Bound £8,000 £2,000 £10,000 3200 21

between 9.1% and 10.5% (Table 2).

2.2.2. Life Cycle Cost of Generation
Life cycle cost of generation stands for the price that consumer need to pay in order for the energy provider to break-
even. It is looked into the cost at capital costs as well as operational costs. Capital costs covers the costs at both
construction stage and decommissioning stage of an energy project, where operational costs covers the costs generated
for operation and maintenance of an energy project and expenditures on waste disposal. The total levelised costs is the
total sum for capital costs and operational costs.
Costs of PV system covers the costs for modules and balance of system (BOS). While costs of components are
relatively similar, costs of installation varies depending on a number of factors such as supply chain, local regulatory
requirements, labor costs and financing mechanisms etc. Table 3 shows break-down of costs provided by IEA[5]with
3.5% discount rate applied [6]. The levelised cost for PV is £121.71/MWh, with £92.51/MWh of capital cost and
£29.20/MWh O&M costs. Table 5 Profitability of solar PV
2.2.3. Profitability Lower- Lower- Upper- Upper-
Lower Upper Lower Upper
Payback period examines the amount of time for income generated through Bound Bound Bound Bound
a technology to break-even with total capital and maintenance expenditure. PI 1.07 1.31 0.29 0.51
Income generated is mainly through bill reduction and export rate and Feed
in Tariff (FiT). PV systems installed in the UK are currently without export meters, hosts of the system receive export
rate at 4.85p per kW/h at 50% of electricity generated from the PV regardless of actual export amount, hence
exporting rate is made based on 50% of electricity generated are export to the grid and 50% consumed by the host. For
each kWh electricity generated, the host receives 4.39p subsidy from FiT[7]. Both export rate and FiT are to be
discounted by Retail Price Index (RPI) of 1.3%. The average cost for a domestic PV system is between £6000-
£8000[8]. Local company Northern Energy Solutions had provided with quota of £7000 including installation fees.
Inverters is required to be replaced twice throughout guaranteed life span which costs £1000-£2000[9]. For energy bill
saving, the average cost per unit electricity consumption sources from DECC report for Northeast England region as
15.38p/kWh at average annual consumption of 3800kWh [10] According to above assumptions, the payback period
can be estimated between 13 and 21 years.
Profitability Index (PI) was first developed by Reul [11], it describes the efficiency of invested capital of a technology
from its economic performance through benefit-cost ratio The higher value PI is, the higher ability of financial
performance a technology is able to demonstrate. [12].Based on end of life profit established in previous section, PI for
profit over the 25 years of life time is shown in Table 5. Profitability index has a highest value of 1.31 based on best
case scenario where the annual energy yield is at its highest and expenditure is at its lowest; and a lower value of 0.29
in the worst case scenario where highest system expenditure and lowest annual energy yield is expected. An average of
0.80 and median of 0.79 can also be estimated.

2.3. Environmental Indicators

GaBi professional v6.115 and Ecoinvent 3.1[13]integrated database are used for estimating environmental impact of
solar PV.
 Tianqi Li et al. / Energy Procedia 105 (2017) 3320 – 3325 3323

2.3.1 Energy Payback Period Table 6 Material recyclability of solar PV

Energy payback period calculates the time duration Mass of Material (kg) Recyclability UK Recyclability
required for energy system to generated electricity in GFRP 0.19 79.40% 10.00% [14, 15];
Aluminium Alloy(AlMg3) 2.63 100.00% 96.00% [16]
order to recover the energy consumed to build the Board Box 1.11 100.00% 86.50%[17]
Ethyl vinyl Acetate 1 100.00% 100.00%
system. Based on life cycling modelling of solar PV, it Solar Glass 10.01 100.00% 67.80%[17]
can be estimated that energy required for produce a 3kwp Tempering Glass
Copper (Cable)
10.08
0.11
100.00%
100.00%
67.80%[17]
57.40% [17]
system is 9037kWh, hence the payback period ranges Silicon Product 0.12 100.00% 100.00%
Calcium Chloride 0.02 100.00% 100.00%
between 2.5-2.8 years. Polyethylene Terephthalate 0.37 100.00% 100.00%
2.3.2 Material Recyclability Total Mass (kg)
Design Recyclability
25.64
99.80%
Material recyclability is percentage of the amount Practical Recyclability 72.90%
of recyclable material among all material required for
manufacturing and installation. Assumptions on material recyclability is listed in Table 6. For solar PV, all materials
throughout the manufacturing and installation are recyclable apart from glass-fibre reinforced plastic (GFRP).
According to Ecoinvent data base v3.1 [13]database aggregate content of concrete is 79.4%, if GFRP is to be down
cycled for production of concrete. Given the
significant difference between designed recycling
rate and actual recycling rate in the UK, it can be
established that material recyclability for solar
PV has lower rate of 72.9% due to practical
material recycling rate, and a higher value of
99.7% according to theoretical recycling rate.
2.3.3 Environmental Emissions
Figure 2.1-2.4 demonstrates environmental
emission per kWh electricity generated from
solar PV. It can be seen that environmental
emissions are high at both raw material
acquisition stage and manufacturing stage.
Manufacturing process dominates environmental
impact on global warming potential and Figure 2.1-2.4 Environmental emissions of solar PV.
acidification potential; while raw material Figure 2.1 Global warming potential for solar PV is 0.143g CO equiv. /kWh in total, where 0.143g
2

acquisition process mainly contributes to originate from manufacturing process and 0.0002g originate from raw material acquisition process
eutrophication potential and human toxicity Figure 2.2 Acidification potential for solar PV is 1.82e-3g SO equiv. /kWh in total, where 8.57e-9g
2

potential. originate from manufacturing process and1.82 e-3g originate from raw material acquisition process
Figure 2.3 Eutrophication potential for solar PV is 9.49 e-7g phosphate equiv. /kWh in total, where0.25e-
7g origins from manufacturing process and 9.21 e-7g from raw material acquisition process
2.4. Social Indicators Figure 2.4 Human toxicity potential for solar PV is 3.2 e-4 g DCB equiv. /kWh in total, where 8.63 e-7g
origins from manufacturing process and 1.27 e-4g from raw material acquisition process
2.4.1 Land use
Since rooftop area where solar PV systems are installed does not categories as green field, and installation of
the energy system does not cause disturbance to green field nearby, therefore the land use impact for solar PV can be
neglected.
2.4.2 Local community impacts
Social indicators are less well developed compare to environmental and economic indicators, mainly due to
complexity of social issues. Social impacts are analyzed through three categories in proposed framework: employment
provision, community impacts and reduction of fuel poverty. Employment
provision is presented as number of employment generated for each unit of Table 7 Bill Reduction Achieved
Through Installation of Solar PV
electricity produced throughout life time of the energy system. Since Annual Bill Bill
decommissioning is not considered for assessed PV systems, only employment Reduction Reduction
generated at installation and operation stages are considered. According to (£) Rate (%)

Cebr[18], solar PV had generated 7.2 employment opportunities for per kWh High £314 54%

electricity generated across the UK. However, this number is expected to decline Average £294 51%

dramatically following recent reduction on FiT. Since the change occurred five Low £273 47%

months prior to this study, updated employment data have not been made available. Direct return of investment promotes
equal distribution of wealth within the community. Community impacts are assessed base the proportion of total annual
3324 Tianqi Li et al. / Energy Procedia 105 (2017) 3320 – 3325

expenditure that are spent on local suppliers. As quoted by local company Northern Energy solutions, 80% of
employment required for installing and maintaining solar PV are coming within the region.
2.4.3 Fuel Poverty
Average domestic electricity bill is £578 per household throughout Northeast region based on annual consumption of
3,800kWh in the year of 2015.[19].Based on previous assumption made on payback period of solar PV, annual bill
reduction through installation of solar PV ranges between £273 and £314 with average of £297. It can be seen in table
9 that solar PV alone is able to achieve 47%-54% bill reduction rate. This figure is slightly higher than existing
statistics, possibly be due to low energy consumption per household as a result of severe fuel poverty in the region.

3. Results and
Discussion
Sustainability assessment
results of solar PV is
illustrated in figure 3.1-3.2.
Lower estimate of ccapacity
factor of solar PV in the
Northeast(8.6%) is notably
higher than that of national
scale (3.99%) as concluded by
Stamford [20] This could be
explained by different data assumption on annual energy yield employed by Stamford, which was collected from field
trial from 10 years ago, where solar PV was under-developed due to low subsidy. From this point it can also be
observed that significant improvement have been made for solar PV technology over the past decade; moreover, it can
be said that governmental subsidies had large positive impact of development and deployment of solar PV
technologies in the UK.
Capacity factor of Northeast region is significantly lower than Portugal (17%) [21]. Given solar PV technologies
employed in the UK is compatible with that of Portugal, this difference can only be caused by available solar
radiation. Therefore it can be established that the major constraint for solar PV is available incident sunlight. Cost-
effectiveness of PV could also be let down by low solar radiation in the Northeast region. The technology payback
period ranges between 13 and 21 years. Based on best scenario of lowest system cost and highest possible annual
yield, a solar PV system requires 52% of its designed life time to break-even with capital and O&M costs, which
means less than half of designed life time (48%) the plant is able to run on a debt free basis. As for the worst case
scenario where highest system and O&M is expected at least energy yield, the plant only has 16% of designed life
time to be running debt free. Although duration life time of solar PV is not limited by designed life time, long payback
period seems to make the profitability questionable. Similar situation can be observed from profitability index (PI).
The decision rule for PI is that any investment with PI less than 1 should be rejected. Two PI scenarios appear to be
less than 1, where only scenarios where system and O&M cost is at its lowest has positive profitability. This reflects
an underlying issue that solar PV is struggling to be profitable due to its unreliable financial output which has limited
ability to cancel out relatively higher investment costs. It shall be noted that this assumption is made based on new
reduced FiT rate; given solar PV had been a popular investment option prior to revised FiT hence granted profitability,
this issue on the other hand further reflected negative financial impact brought by reduced subsidy. It then can be
estimated that with further reduction on governmental subsidies, solar PV will no longer be a popular investment
option.
Installation of this technology does not occupy any green field, operation of this technology is almost emission free
and it has the potential to largely mitigate existing fuel poverty issue, this is particularly helpful for fuel deprived area
of Northeast region. Employment opportunities provided by solar PV is limited from regional perspective, mainly due
to its nature of low maintenance required and easiness to installation.
Although solar PV has proved its ability to delivery positive social impacts to local community in addition to reduce
local carbon emission, life cycle assessment shows that solar PV does have substantial emission at beginning stages of
its life cycle. This means of each unit of clean electricity local residents are benefiting from in the Northeast England
is causing environmental degradation at where the PV systems are sourced and produced. Both raw material and
manufacturing process are equally contribute to a series of environmental issue including global warming potential
(0.143g CO2 equiv. /kWh), eutrophication (9.49 e-7g phosphate equiv. /kWh), acidification(1.82e-3g SO2 equiv. /kWh)
and human toxicity (3.2 e-4 g DCB equiv. /kWh). However, life time environmental emission of solar PV remains
much lower than other renewable technologies, for example global warming potential (11.2g CO2 equiv/kWh)[20] and
acidification potential of offshore wind (28g SO2 equiv/ kWh) [22] are almost double that of solar PV. Material
recycle rate has 26.8% difference between theoretical recycling rate and actual recycling rate in the UK. This pointing
 Tianqi Li et al. / Energy Procedia 105 (2017) 3320 – 3325 3325

to another issue that negative impact caused by recyclability of solar PV is mainly caused by inefficient existing
recycling practice in the UK rather than designed recyclability.

4. Conclusions
Available solar radiation has direct impact on techno-economic and environmental sustainability of solar PV,
hence this technology would be less suitable for regions with less incident sunlight. Although Northeast region does
not benefit from high solar irradiance, overall sustainability performance of solar PV appear to be satisfying. Apart
from reducing carbon emission and providing clean energy to end users, solar PV is able to bring significant positive
social impacts to local communities, mainly though solving fuel poverty which is highly appreciated in the Northeast
region. However, due to its high reliance on subsidy and relatively high capital investment required, financing
difficulties had set up burdens for deployment of this technology. In addition, it shall be noted that unless large scale
of solar PV installation is going to take place, employment opportunities generated by solar PV is rather limited.
Furthermore, the sustainability assessment methodology proposed in this study provides a straightforward, systematic
and wholistic tool for evaluating sustainability performance of energy technologies at regional scale. The effectiveness
of the proposed methodology can be further pronounced when the when a mixed portfolio of technologies is
considered and/or compared. Indicators listed in proposed framework are developed based on situation in the UK, they
could be less relevant for examining energy technologies in other countries due to the difference in the policymaking
process and market mechanisms; in which cases, indicators can included in the model can be modified where
appropriate, while the structure remains unchanged.

Copyright

Authors keep full copyright over papers published in Energy Procedia

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Biography
Tianqi Li BSc. (hons), MCMI, MEI, MIET is an experienced sustainability professional with background
in both environmental science, pharmaceutical innovation and business management. She is currently
pursuing her Ph.D. on Sustainable Energy at Newcastle University. Her interest lies in bridging the gap
between sustainability theory and good practice.