Life cycle and damage assessment of the third generation fractal texturing solar panels

The photovoltaic (PV) sector has undergone both major expansion and evolution over the last decades, and currently, the technologies already marketed or still in the laboratory/research phase are numerous and very different. Likewise, in order to assess the energy and environmental impacts of these devices, life cycle assessment (LCA) studies related to these systems are always increasing. In this paper, utilizing the LCA method and SimaPro software, a comparative analysis has been done between conventional solar panels and fractal glass texture panels. In addition, a sensitivity analysis has been performed on the fractal feature of the panel and its role in environmental impacts and damages. The results show that for the three main environmental impacts, this new technology has 1 % less negative impacts in all three aspects of human health, ecosystems and resources compared to the conventional PV panels.