This book provides a detailed life cycle assessment of photovoltaic technologies in order to analyse the environmental and socioeconomic impacts that a large deployment of solar photovoltaic systems will produce in the near future.

Including both commercial and emerging technologies, the book presents the energy and materials requirements to manufacture solar electricity power systems at the order of the TeraWatt scale deployment as is envisaged by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) for the near future. It discusses current manufacturing practices and how these may be adapted in the future including:

• reuse and recycling of components and materials;
• raw material supply chains to the manufacturing factories; and
• end-of-life procedures including recycling and landfilling of modules.

The environmental and socioeconomic impacts of solar energy are analysed in detail, providing recommendations for standardization and regulations in order to make photovoltaic technologies, both current and emerging, a really sustainable alternative for the supply of “greener” electricity.