Potential regulatory approaches on the environmental impacts of photovoltaics: Expected improvements and impacts on technological innovation

Abstract

This work assesses the opportunities for technological development and innovation that may be imposed or created by environmental policy. Working within the legislative framework of European Union (EU) sustainable product policies, a study of the feasibility of four specific policy instruments (Ecodesign Directive, Energy Labelling, Green Public Procurement and the EU Ecolabel) to photovoltaic products (modules, inverters and systems) led to the identification of key performance metrics and design features. Starting from an analysis of the environmental hotspots of photovoltaic products throughout the whole life cycle (from raw material extraction to their end of life and disposal), a number of areas of attention for innovation are identified and a policy approach is proposed to tackle these aspects in regulatory terms by means, in particular, of requirements within the legal framework of the Ecodesign Directive.

Overview of key results achieved in H2020 HighLite project helping to raise the EU PV industries' competitiveness

“…to differentiate itself from the competition and benefit from specific incentives that are already in place (e.g., CRE tenders in France) or that are being envisaged on a wider scale by the EU commission. 18 Finally, to avoid any major dependency on foreign products (as currently shown by the major crisis around Russian oil and gas supply) and to ensure local and responsible production following environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria, the EU PV industry must consolidate across its entire value chain (materials, equipment, etc.). In this context, existing EU PV manufacturers are ramping up production toward multi-GW scale while several new entrants are coming with very large plans (REC, Greenland, Carbon, etc.…”

“…The EU PV manufacturing industry also needs to focus on reducing the environmental impact of its products (lower CO 2 footprint, improved sustainability, and recyclability, etc.) to differentiate itself from the competition and benefit from specific incentives that are already in place (e.g., CRE tenders in France) or that are being envisaged on a wider scale by the EU commission 18 . Finally, to avoid any major dependency on foreign products (as currently shown by the major crisis around Russian oil and gas supply) and to ensure local and responsible production following environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria, the EU PV industry must consolidate across its entire value chain (materials, equipment, etc.).…”

Circular economy priorities for photovoltaics in the energy transition

“…Offsetting virgin material demands can be accomplished in ways other than recycling, including high-yield, high-efficiency, reliable systems (thereby reducing replacement and total deployment needs); remanufacturing of components; and circular material sourcing. Other studies have cataloged detailed considerations of PV design for circular economy, current recycling status and challenges [25,27,[75][76][77]. In addition to these technological circular economy designs, policy and business paradigms could support a circular economy for PV [78,79].…”

“…Several technology modifications could be made to PV to improve circularity, as covered by several studies [20,[25][26][27][28]. These could include increasing system lifetime and reliability [28][29][30][31], improving closed-loop module recycling [32,33], or module remanufacturing [34][35][36].…”

Environmental and Circular Economy Implications of Solar Energy in a Decarbonized U.S. Grid

“…PV sustainability scorecards, 100 standards and regulations offer mechanisms to guide, 8,101,102 operationalize, 103 declare, and measure the adoption of industrywide CE practices and, thereby, help procurers and consumers rank PV suppliers based on key environmental performance indicators. 99 The NSF/ANSI 457 standard 99 incentivizes the incorporation of CE practices by assigning a higher rank to PV suppliers who declare the content of recycled material and substances of very high concern in the product, comply with existing directives (e.g., the…”