Page 72 - RSE - Results of the Apollon Project

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Environmental and Cost impact Analysis

(ECN, CPOWER, ASSE)

Current Challenges for CPV Competitiveness

“2012 marked the sharpest setback for renewable energy investment in recent years” .The main reason was the
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uncertainty felt by investors (developers, equity providers and lenders) caused by changes to the policies supporting
renewable deployment. There was also the threat that severe tariffs would be imposed on the sale of Chinese PV
modules sold in Europe. The reversals in policy slowed demand unexpectedly, causing the extra capacity of a sector
expecting to ramp up to be a stone around its neck. The excess capacity in the PV manufacturing chain depressed
prices and squeezed margins. PV module prices dropped by 42% in 2012 from a global average price of 1.37 euros/
Wp in 2011 to 0.79/Wp in 2012. Early 2013 saw a further decrease by 18 percent to 0.65 euros/Wp with inventory
averages around 0.58 eurosWp. Coming at a time when a newly maturing industry would otherwise undergo a healthy
consolidation and coinciding with a faltering global economy, the additional policy and trade uncertainties have been
heavy blows to the PV industry. Observing the current major contraction, market analysts expect 70% of PV companies
to go out of business by the end of 2013. These diffcult conditions have caused even the top four PV manufacturers
worldwide (Yingli Green Energy, First Solar, Trina Solar and Canadian Solar) to suffer net losses in 2012.
Concentrating photovoltaics (CPV) may be viewed as the pursuit of a very sustainable idea to minimize the
semiconductor material by managing and concentrating the light with other more sustainable materials. By
conserving the amount of energy-converting materials, there is a cost window to use more expensive, more highly
effcient PV semiconductor devices. From a sustainability and economic viewpoint, the addition of extra materials
for the tracker, the housing, and the light management needs to compensate, economically and in terms of
sustainability, for the PV semiconductor device material that they displace.
In the context of the current market for PV devices, the economic challenges have been enormous, even for
current industry leaders. Currently, the PV market is stabilizing at about 0.60-0.70 euros/Wp, which sets a constraint
on the range of prices that are competitive for CPV. Furthermore, the effciency of non-concentrating PV modules are
about 16% and climbing. Therefore, CPV needs to have signifcantly higher performances to compete.

Methods used for a Life-cycle Assessment of the Apollon CPv design

A life-cycle environmental assessment was performed on the fnal APOLLON concentrating photovoltaic module
design, with the aim to determine energy payback time (EPBT), the carbon footprint of the system. The costs for
making the prototypes and for manufacturing commercial systems is reported. The results are benchmarked against
other concentrating photovoltaic systems. Ways to reduce the environmental impact in the material and production
design choices are highlighted.
A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) evaluates the environmental impact of a product or service over its lifetime. This
analysis follows the guidelines set out in the international standard ISO14040, which describes the principles and
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framework for LCA, as well as the Methodology for Life Cycle Assessment of Photovoltaic Electricity by the IEA The
software used in this analysis is Simapro 7.3 with the ecoinvent 2.2 database. The energy embedded in the module

35 Fthenakis, Vasilis M.; Kim, Hyung Chul; “Life cycle assessment of high-concentration photovoltaic systems”, Progress in Photovoltaics: Research and
Applications (2013) 21, 379-388.
36 “Methodology of Life Cycle Assessment for Photovoltaic Electricity”, IEA, 2011, Report IEA-PVPS T12-03:2011 http://www.iea-pvps.org/fleadmin/
dam/public/report/technical/rep12_11.pdf.

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