A comparative LCA study on potential of very-large scale PV systems in Gobi desert

The Life-Cycle Analysis (LCA) including decommission stage of the VLS-PV system with six types of PV modules was studied in this paper. They were assumed to be installed in Gobi desert in China, where there are abundant sunshine and land area. Output electricity of the system is consumed in city by 100 km transmission line. Concerning the Energy requirement, the CIS was the smallest, and biggest energy requirement was the sc-Si. mc-Si, a-Si/sc-Si hetero junction type, thin-film tandem and CdTe were average. Especially, the energy payback time of the CIS PV module was much shorter than the others. It was approximately 1.8 years. And energy payback time of sc-Si was 2.5 years. The others were approximately 2.0 to 2.3 years. Characteristics of CO2 emissions rate were almost same, but biggest CO2 emissions and CO2 emissions rate was the thin-film hybrid PV module. CO2 emissions rate was 71 g-CO2/kWh. The mc-Si and a-Si/sc-Si hetero junction type shows lower CO2 emissions rate. It is approximately 51-53 g-CO2/kWh.