Speaker
Description
The research community has urged for broader sustainability considerations to guide the development of next generation photovoltaics (PV). We propose a practical sustainability framework with quantifiable indicators for ecological impact, planetary boundaries, social risks, and supply constraints. We apply this framework to raw material mining for a large-scale deployment scenario of perovskite PV.
For both ecological and social impacts, principal component analysis is applied to (social) life cycle impact assessment indicators to identify six representative parameters that capture most relevant impacts. Supply risk is assessed using eight risk indicators. Impacts relative to planetary boundaries are quantified by allocating a representative share of the safe operating space to the PV industry using a grandfathering approach.
The results demonstrates that planetary boundaries are a valuable reference point, but insufficient on their own, as materials within the allocated safe operating space may still pose local environmental, social, or supply-related concerns. Several key materials in particular indium, tin, and iodine are associated with elevated supply constraints. Perovskite PV substantially reduce the environmental impact compared to coal-based electricity generation. Yet, the material selection can significantly influence the environmental profile of PV technologies, as the environmental impact of the materials vary by up to five orders of magnitude. We find that the social risk assessment needs to be carried out at a granular scale. A country-level perspective reveals that high shares of all relevant materials for perovskite PV are mined in countries with high social risk factors.
This study shows that clean energy technologies must be evaluated beyond performance and climate-mitigation potential, as their material requirements may pose environmental, social, and supply-related risks. This mandates trade-offs in the technology development process.
