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Environmental Life Cycle Inventory of Crystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Module Production

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 February 2011

Mariska de Wild-Scholten  and
Erik A. Alsema
Mariska de Wild-Scholten
Affiliation:
m.dewild@ecn.nl, Energy research Centre of the Netherlands, Solar Energy, Westerduinweg 1, Petten, N/A, 1755 LE, Netherlands, +31 224 56 4736, +31 224 56 8214
Erik A. Alsema
Affiliation:
e.a.alsema@chem.uu.nl, Copernicus Institute, Utrecht University, Department of Science, Technology and Society, Netherlands
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Abstract

Together with 11 European and US photovoltaic companies an extensive effort has been made to collect Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) data that represents the status of production technology for crystalline silicon modules for the year 2004. These data can be used to evaluate the environmental impacts of photovoltaic solar energy systems.

The new data covers all processes from silicon feedstock production via wafer- and cell- to module manufacturing. All commercial wafer technologies are covered, i.e multi- and mono-crystalline wafers as well as ribbon technologies. For monocrystalline silicon wafer production further improvement of the data quality is recommended.

Keywords

environmentally benignphotovoltaicSi
Type
Research Article
Information
MRS Online Proceedings Library (OPL) , Volume 895: Symposium G – Life-Cycle Analysis Tools for “Green” Materials and Process Selection , 2005 , 0895-G03-04
Copyright
Copyright © Materials Research Society 2006

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References

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