Life cycle assessment of Stand-alone Photovoltaic (SAPV) system: article

This paper presents a study on Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Stand-alone Photovoltaic (SAPV) system. The SAPV power station was selected locating at Sekolah Kebangsaan (SK) Kalabakan Tawau in Sabah, Malaysia. The LCA has been carried out to evaluate overall performance of the photovoltaic (PV) system. The performances are in terms of economic, carbon dioxide (CO2) emission, energy pay-back time (EPBT) and levelized cost of energy (LCOE). For economic and LCOE analysis purposes HOMER simulation software has been applied. The HOMER software compute the economics of the SAPV system by mean net present cost (NPC) technique. The data of solar resource and load demand of the site have been taken from actual data provided by PV system at SK Kalabakan. The EPBT and CO2 emission of the system are calculated manually through the mathematical formulation. In this project, it was found that the total NPC of the PV system is $384517. The PV modules contribute most in total NPC around 45%, follow by battery 25%, power conditioning including controller 14%, O&M of the system 11% and diesel generator contribute only 5%. The estimated LCOE, annual CO2 emission and EPBT of the PV system are 1.594 $/kWh, 2898 kg-CO2/year and 10.47 years respectively.