As photovoltaic (PV) deployment accelerates, improving the recyclability of PV modules is critical to reduce environmental impacts and support circular economy goals. This article presents a methodology to develop a recyclability index specifically tailored to PV modules, intended to inform future European Union (EU) policy instruments such as Ecodesign and Energy Labeling. The index evaluates service-related, dismantling-related, and material-related parameters, grounded in design-for-recycling (DfR) principles. A multicriteria weighting approach was applied to prioritize components based on environmental relevance, criticality, mass content, and economic value-highlighting materials such as glass, aluminum, silicon, and silver. The scoring system was calibrated through laboratory testing of representative PV modules, using purpose-developed dismantlability tests. The proposed index offers a robust, quantifiable tool to assess and compare PV modules designs based on their recyclability potential. It is intended to support policy development and market differentiation by promoting design choices that enhance material recovery, reduce waste and decrease reliance on virgin materials, contributing to the objectives of the EU Circular Economy Action Plans.

In May 2022, the European Commission adopted a new European Union (EU) Solar Energy Strategy [1] aiming to ensure that solar energy achieves its full potential in helping to meet the European Green Deal's climate and energy targets. A goal of the strategy is to reach nearly 600 GW of installed solar photovoltaics (PV) capacity by 2030. While Europe is a pioneer in the definition of new policy requirements to ensure the circularity and sustainability of PV products, its manufacturing capabilities are limited. The EU mostly imports PV modules from China, which for the last decade has remained the global leader in PV manufacturing across the supply chain. This article aims to provide insight into the solar PV industry and the surrounding policy context, focusing on the manufacturing phase and its climate impact. It provides a comparative overview of the key players in the European and Chinese PV markets with an overview of the whole supply chain (i.e. production of polysilicon, cells, wafers and modules). Having in mind the net-zero commitments across the globe, and a central role of the solar PV in the energy transition, the demand for PV products is expected to grow exponentially in the next decades. With this in mind, the authors look into environmental impacts from the PV manufacturing. A simplified analysis concludes on the suitability of the PV manufacturing process today and indicates the opportunities for the net-zero transition in the future. While the focus is on the carbon impacts of the solar PV industry, the authors also identify other relevant aspects (such as circularity), laying the ground for a future research. The demand for PV products, given their importance in net-zero energy transition, will grow exponentially. Up to 36% of the global GHG emissions from PV manufacturing could be reduced by 2030 by applying improvement measures, such as reduction of silicon content, energy mix, and efficiency improvements. image

Policies related to the circular economy are currently being implemented intensively within the European Union, with a central role attributed to the Ecodesign Directive. Within this framework, this paper devises a general methodology to be applied for the formulation of recyclability indexes for products, with particular regard to the specific case of PV modules. Recyclability indexes can be intended as an aggregated manner to assess and present information about the product aspects related to recyclability, with the view to convey this multi-layered information to various audiences. The key elements, as well as the related design features, for the definition of such type of index have been identified. An assessment on the environmental benefits stemming from the availability of a recyclability index is also presented. Finally, the policy approaches for the application of a recyclability index in regulatory terms are discussed, by means, in particular, of requirements in the legal framework of the EU Ecodesign Directive.

As announced in the European Green Deal, it is critical to decarbonise the European Union energy system in order to reach climate objectives by 2030 and 2050. According to the REPowerEU plan, photovoltaics (PV) is expected to play a major role in this. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure that newly installed PV modules in the EU are affordable and competitive on the one hand and environmentally friendly on the other. Bearing in mind that the environmental hotspots for PV modules mainly occur during the manufacturing phase, the aim of the paper is to develop a fully-fledged and adapted methodology for calculating the carbon footprint of PV modules, with particular regard to the manufacturing and shipping phases, following a cradle-to-gate approach based on the Product Environmental Footprint Category Rules for PV modules. The implications of requirements for the carbon footprint of PV modules, under the existing legal framework of the Ecodesign Directive, are also discussed.

As part of the Ecodesign framework, the European Union's energy‐labeling scheme has proved to be a powerful tool to communicate with consumers regarding the energy use of products. With sales of photovoltaic (PV) modules and small systems set to expand rapidly for the European Union to meet its commitments on CO 2 reduction, ensuring that newly installed PV products in the European Union are environmentally friendly and do not create future burdens on the environment is of primary importance. Herein, an innovative methodology in support of a potential energy‐labeling scheme for both PV modules and PV systems (installations) is proposed. The estimated annual and lifetime yields for a PV module and system respectively are used as parameters for classification from A (best) to G (worst) in the proposed scheme. How to “translate” the methodology into a practical energy‐labeling scheme, i.e., for use in EU policy implementing measures, is also discussed. The conceptual challenges of proposing an energy label for energy‐generating products, i.e., PV modules and systems, are also discussed.

This work assesses the opportunities for technological development and innovation that may be imposed or created by environmental policy. Working within the legislative framework of European Union (EU) sustainable product policies, a study of the feasibility of four specific policy instruments (Ecodesign Directive, Energy Labelling, Green Public Procurement and the EU Ecolabel) to photovoltaic products (modules, inverters and systems) led to the identification of key performance metrics and design features. Starting from an analysis of the environmental hotspots of photovoltaic products throughout the whole life cycle (from raw material extraction to their end of life and disposal), a number of areas of attention for innovation are identified and a policy approach is proposed to tackle these aspects in regulatory terms by means, in particular, of requirements within the legal framework of the Ecodesign Directive.

Policies related to the Circular Economy are currently being implemented intensively within the European Union. A central role is attributed to the Ecodesign Directive: since the publication of the Circular Economy Action Plan in December 2015, reinforced by the 2020 Circular Economy Action Plan, material efficiency requirements are being systematically investigated in the preparatory work preceding each Ecodesign Regulation. A systematic and updated review about the coverage of Circular Economy aspects (such as product durability, repairability, recyclability and spare parts availability) within Ecodesign Regulations is, to date, missing in literature. Within this framework, this paper firstly analyses the scope and the expected impacts of Ecodesign requirements on material efficiency aspects already in application at the European Union level. Secondly, it identifies a number or research priorities, in order to provide policymakers with tools such as standardised metrics on Circular Economy aspects, methods for the evaluation of environmental externalities at product level and models for the quantification of environmental and economic impacts stemming from Circular Economy requirements. Finally, the paper devises some regulatory approaches and areas for policy intervention in order to enable further and more ambitious Circular Economy objectives within the framework of the Ecodesign Directive.

The concept of a circular economy has been widely accepted by governments and industries. In Europe, the European Commission adopted the Circular Economy package in 2015. The Ecodesign Directive has been identified as one of the most suitable legislative tools for achieving some of the objectives in the package because it has the potential to translate the circular economy principles into specific product material efficiency requirements. This paper applies the Ecodesign policy process to "enterprise servers" to illustrate how circular economy strategies can be implemented by European product policies. Indeed, the paper introduces a potential novel approach to "operationalize" circular economy principles in product policies. The evolution of the material efficiency requirements for a more circular economy is described up to their final formulation, which is the one in the published Ecodesign regulation. This legal act includes requirements on design for disassembly, firmware availability, data deletion, and presence of critical raw materials. The process for enterprise servers has been successful as the early discussions between stakeholders, policymakers and experts, supported by appropriate metrics along an iterative debate, comes to the publications of material efficiency requirements in a regulation. This study represents a 'first-of-a-kind' experience, and sets precedents for the development of similar requirements for other product groups.

At European Union level, the 2015 Circular Economy Action Plan establishes challenging yet achievable policy objectives. In this context, it is expected that a key role could be played by the Ecodesign Directive, among the most renowned legislative initiatives addressing the environmental impact of products. This policy has the potential to implement the circular economy principles into actual requirements at product level. To this extent, improvements are needed to the supporting analytical tool, the Methodology for Ecodesign of Energy-related Products. This paper focuses on the techno-economic aspects of this methodology, devising improvements such as the systematic inclusion of a) externalities (by proposing to account them as environmental fees to be added in the consumer life cycle costing), b) lifetime (by proposing to switch from the life cycle cost to the 'equivalent annual cost') and c) material consumption aspects (by proposing to determine the life cycle cost as a function of energy and material). These methodological improvements are expected to contribute enhancing the uptake of circular economy requirements in the Ecodesign policy, notably on product durability, on product reparability and capability to be refurbished, on spare parts availability, on product recyclability and on the reuse of secondary raw materials and/or components.

Although the importance of reusing products has been stated frequently, both in legislation and by academics, the scientific literature does not provide comprehensive and systematic methods of assessing the reuse of a generic product from an environmental point of view. Moreover, the definitions of reuse provided in the literature and legislation are not always consistent. This article introduces an original classification of different types of reuse, including some suggested definitions. It then focuses on remanufacturing, a type of reuse in which a used product (or its components) is returned to at least its original performance level. The article describes the development of a method for assessing, from a life-cycle perspective, the potential environmental benefits of remanufacturing energy-related products. The method includes several novel aspects: it helps to analyse possible trade-offs between potential environmental impacts and energy efficiency; it allows the independent modelling of some parameters that influence product reuse; and it can be applied even at the early stages of the design process, when some specifications may not yet have been defined. The environmental impacts of a product's life-cycle stages are used as input parameters for the assessment. The method is then applied to an enterprise server, a case-study product for which remanufacturing is a current market practice. A sensitivity analysis is included to check how uncertainties could affect the overall results. The results of the case study show that remanufactured servers, even those that are less energy efficient, can have lower environmental impacts than new ones. For example, reusing some components (e.g. hard disk drives and memory cards) is environmentally beneficial even if the remanufactured server consumes up to 7% more energy than a newly manufactured server. The case study also demonstrates how the method proposed could be used in the context of product policy discussions.

A globally accepted metric on the energy efficiency of computer servers in business, applications is still missing, despite a great interest from stakeholders. In the context of the implementation of the European Ecodesign Directive, a detailed analysis has been carried out on the feasibility of policy requirements for computer servers addressing, among others, the relation between energy use and performance. The lack of such a metric weakens the effectiveness of a regulation on the server energy efficiency in "on-mode". "Capping" energy use would be the alternative, although complex and disputable because of virtually unlimited internal configuration options of the products placed in the market. In this framework, a dedicated research stream has been devoted to the development a draft proposal for a metric. The paper describes in detail the procedural as well as the theoretical steps to date. The preliminary results show how the draft proposed metric is representative of the user pattern of servers, scalable, technology neutral and does not entail excessive costs. This work could well represent the basis for an international standard, in particular in the framework of a standardisation mandate from the European Commission on the energy efficiency of information and communication technology products. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

This paper discusses of the feasibility of ecodesign requirements on computer servers and presents a case study. Computer servers have been analysed in an ecodesign preparatory study. For the most representative products, the least life cycle cost (LLCC) has been identified: it minimizes the total cost of ownership for the consumer and fosters manufacturers to improve their products with existing technologies as well and providing the optimum level from a regulatory perspective. On the basis of the LLCC assessment and related product efficiency level, ecodesign requirements can be proposed, bearing in mind the principle of technology neutrality and pushing the market towards increased efficiency levels. The preparatory study confirmed that computer servers are products responsible for a significant share of electricity consumption in the EU. Ecodesign requirements could result in environmentally effective and sustainable policy options, also from an industry competitiveness perspective. The requirements may cover hardware aspects, in particular efficiency of the power supply units, operating temperature and product's efficiency, both in idle and active state. For the latter, the presence of standardized and accurate testing methods is crucial. Moreover, possible resource efficiency requirements may be proposed, in particular to promote reparability, reusability and recyclability. In order to help identifying the best regulatory approach, several policy options are outlined.

Since the first research studies in the 1970s, the metastable behavior of amorphous silicon thin film photovoltaic modules has yet to be fully understood. In this paper a quantitative model for the performance of thin film amorphous and micromorph modules is presented. The first part of the experimental study consists of periodic indoor measurements of I-V characteristics on a set of six modules (single, double and triple junction), during a one year period of outdoor exposure. In the second part, light soaking and thermal annealing cycles were performed indoors on the same modules. The goal of the present research is to assess how the performance of a module is affected by the operating conditions, mainly temperature and irradiance, both of which contribute to a seasonal variation in its performance. For this purpose, a quantitative model is developed that takes into account both of these two contributions; the results show a good agreement between experimental and theoretical data. Further developments and model improvements are proposed and discussed. (c) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

ABSTRACTThe presented paper reports the results of the experimental work performed at the European Solar Test Installation, using an array of 70 polycrystalline silicon photovoltaic (PV) modules by the same manufacturer. After almost 20 years of continuous outdoor exposure, the modules were subjected to a comprehensive indoor test plan; in particular, electrical performance measurements were performed, together with a detailed visual analysis. It was also possible to perform a comparison between final and initial data (in particular IV characteristics): module average performance decay is 4.42% for the whole period. Degradation mechanisms, together with their effect on module lifetime, were also analyzed. Results of such a measurement exercise clearly show how PV device reliability over decades can guarantee safe investments, for the benefit of all PV users and stakeholders. The authors are currently installing the modules for further 20 years of outdoor exposure. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

ABSTRACTThis paper presents a validation study on series resistance determination of photovoltaic modules on the basis of the IEC 60891 edition 2.0 (2009) normative standard. A selection of different technologies has been investigated, ranging from polycrystalline silicon to thin film modules. Their I–V characteristics have been measured at the European Solar Test Installation under various operating conditions with respect to module temperature and irradiance. The aim of this research work is twofold: firstly, it contributes to the quantitative assessment of the effect of the various calculation parameters on the overall precision of the series resistance; secondly, it provides information about the dependence of series resistance on module performance over a wide range of irradiance and module temperature. A comparison with the previous calculation procedure from the first edition of the IEC 60891 (1987) has also been performed in order to understand how the differences between the two methods can affect the final results. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The ALPINE project is developing innovative fiber lasers for the scribing of new thin film photovoltaic modules with the aims to push forward the European research and development of fiber laser systems and solar energy exploitation. The fiber lasers will be based on photonic crystal fibers, which are characterized by unusual and interesting light guiding properties exploited to deliver high power with excellent beam quality and high resonator stability and efficiency, and will be applied to substitute mechanical scribing steps in the photovoltaic module production. In addition, new photovoltaic thin film technologies is applied, which is based on cadmium telluride and copper indium diselenide materials. With a potential conversion efficiency just below that of crystalline silicon, these new material approaches are ready to enter the market with low manufacturing costs for immediate economic or environment impact.