Energy payback time and Greenhouse Gas emissions: Studying the international energy agency guidelines architecture

摘要

The International Energy Agency (IEA) in collaboration with an international panel of experts has published three editions of the Methodology Guidelines on Life Cycle Assessment of Photovoltaic Electricity (2009, 2011 and 2016) with the growing purpose of making increasingly precise assessments. This reference implies the estimation of major environmental indicators reported in literature, such as Energy PayBack Time (EPBT) and Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions in order to determine their benefits in terms of energy compared to conventional alternatives. However, in most cases this framework provides simplified calculations at the expense of accuracy.