Life Cycle Assessment of a Photovoltaic-thermal Micro-cogeneration System

Nowadays the urgency in reduction of emissions and of depletion of resources makes the employment of renewable energy necessary for encourage a sustainable development. The paper presents the results of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of an innovative system for the production of renewable energy. The environmental and social impacts of a prototype of a sun tracking system of distributed micro-cogeneration, producing electric and thermal energy from the solar energy, are analyzed. Particular attention is paid on the impact of the end of life of the system and of its components, such as the Photovoltaic (PV) cells. Different design alternatives of the micro-cogeneration system are evaluated in order to individuate the best configuration from environmental and social point of view.