Assessing the Life Cycle Sustainability of Solar Energy Production Systems: A Toolkit Review in the Context of Ensuring Environmental Performance Improvements

Abstract

In order to pursue clean, low-carbon, safe, and efficient energy utilization and accelerate the development of new energy, sustainability is the necessary research. In recent decades, solar power generation has rapidly formed and been widely applied. Sustainability analysis is a key aspect that directly affects the construction of solar power projects when conducting solar power generation construction. This paper attempts to start with life cycle sustainability assessment (LCSA) and study the status quo of its three pillars (These three pillars include life cycle assessment, life cycle cost assessment, and social life cycle assessment) in the field of solar power generation. At the same time, the externality indicators are considered between pillars. In addition, the application of uncertainty analysis was studied during the analysis process to address the impact of various random factors. The conclusion shows that further research is needed to support this transition by integrating life cycle assessment, life cycle cost, and social life cycle assessment into LCSA for the evaluation. To improve the effectiveness of future research, studies should focus on fulfilling major data gaps in the literature such as the lack of detailed documentation for specific materials and background process choices in life cycle assessment databases. The development of solar power generation can be an important alternative in efforts to decrease climate change impacts and pursue cleaner energy sources in countries where solar energy is more easily available by integrating life cycle assessment (LCA), life cycle cost (LCC), and social life cycle assessment (SLCA) into LCSA. The sustainable development of the solar power generation industry in terms of multiple aspects is supported.