Comparative life cycle assessment of energy production from thermoelectric generators and photovoltaic systems

Nowadays the world is facing enormous challenges against climate change and all the problems it entails. The energy sector is responsible for approximately three quarters of the greenhouses gas emission, so non-fossil fuel energy production is essential for a sustainable transition to a green economy. The objective of the Master's thesis is to evaluate the environmental impacts of different kinds of energy production that do not utilise fossil fuels, through the utilization of life cycle assessment (LCA). The study evaluates two distinct technologies: thermoelectric generators and photovoltaic systems. The first chapter presents an overview of the issues relative to climate change and a description of thermoelectric generators and photovoltaic systems. Following, the LCA analyses have been conducted for mono and multi-crystalline systems for photovoltaic systems. A comparison between the two types of PV technologies has been performed, including also a comparative study with the analysis of PV systems already present in the Ecoinvent database. Then, two different life cycle assessment studies for thermoelectric generators have been carried out. The first considered a bismuth telluride module, with inventory data source collected from the literature. Meanwhile, the second is a more innovative module under research by a German company; in this case the inventory data have been collected from the industry and from literature. A sensitivity analysis has been included in the study. In the last chapter, a comparative LCA analysis has been performed between energy production from TEGs and photovoltaic systems, adjusting the system boundaries to allow comparison between the technologies.