Análisis del ciclo de vida para el desarrollo de las Reglas de ...

ABSTRACT
The global economic, energy and the environment outlook is changing. Nowadays, we
are witnessing an outlook of increasing environmental problems such as climate change and
scarcity of fossil energy resources. This creates a need of transition to a more sustainable society
based on renewable energy and a real awareness about the damages of our human activity on the
environment.
The Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) offers a rigorous methodology for making informed
decisions when choosing the best available technologies since the design stage and minimize the
environmental impacts of the studied products, covering all stages, from the procurement of raw
materials to the end of life.
The Renia project aims to create a software for the environmental assessment and
reporting of solar thermal and photovoltaic systems. This thesis is based on the development of
the case study for solar photovoltaic systems, to be used for the development of the Product
Category Rules (PCR) for manufacturers and installers of the sector helping them to develop the
Environmental Product Declarations (EPD) of its products to improve their environmental
communication.
As main results obtained, for all the impact categories analyzed, the solar panel
manufacturing is the most environmental impact throughout the life cycle of the solar panel
studied. This is mainly because the multicrystalline silicon obtaining, is an high energyintensive
process. Other processes that generate important impacts, but not all categories, are the
inverter, the solar glass and the metallization of the cell.
Although the creation of the PCR has not been finally carried out, the main recommendations
have been made for the principal parameters to be considered and the necessary specifications
obtained from case study as a basis for further development.