Life Cycle Assessment Study Highlights For New York State Based Pvmc Modeled Thin Film Roll-To-Roll Cigs Process

The US Photovoltaic Manufacturing Consortium (PVMC) maintains a comprehensive thin film roll-to-roll CIGS process and cost model for the manufacture of CIGS solar cells on stainless steel foil and the subsequent production of modules that incorporate these cells. PVMC has reviewed the process piece of this model with Abt Associates and they have used this information to conduct a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study of the process. Two key results of the study are presented. First from an LCA perspective, silver, (especially in the tab and stringing process and to a lesser extent in the screen printing process) is a major contributor to LCA impacts such as global warming, acidification and human health particulate. Second, the clean energy mix available in New York State is one of the factors responsible for the low overall Green House Gas (GHG) production using the PVMC process in New York State.