Hi there,
Has anybody ever tried to assess the carbon footprint of his/her PV system ? (PV modules, inverter solar chargers, batteries, cables, circuit-breakers,...)
Does Victron publish any figure about the CO2 content of its products ?
asked
What is the carbon footprint of a Multiplus 2, a MPPT, a Cerbo, a Lynx, etc... ?
I am getting there, the strong assumption being the lifespan (here 20 yrs) of the generator:
@ZeroCO2 According to This Article around 2 years for solar panels.
“Put another way: it takes around 2 years for you to pay back the environmental cost of all the materials and production and transport of the solar panels. After 2 years you are effectively generating electricity free from any environmental cost.”
@klim8skeptic the payback of the carbon content of your installation certainly depends on the country in which one lives (and the carbon content of the electricity delivered by the national grid: 670 g CO2 eq / kWh in Poland and 73 g / kWh in France). So I indeed find around 2 years in Italy, but I would need 2 decades in France.
I doubt the average user is adopting the tech because of the carbon footprint. It is either required for offgrid, as there is no other power (marine, remote etc), or for financial reasons (here it had a payback of 7 years, but this has reduced due to the cost of energy) or simply out of necessity (regions that are without power for 10-12 hours per day).
Considering, locally, the majority of power is coal-dependent and sunshine is plentiful, the return should be quick. In any case, the footprint of the battery packs are most likely the largest contributor.
It may also be a combination of reasons, for which we come to this tech: I did it for financial reasons (the price of electricity in Italy), because I like the idea of being autonomous and immune to black outs, and to get a clean energy source for my home and my small EV (a Zoé). Searching a bit about the CO2 content of my PV components, I was really surprised to see that the contribution of my PV panels (7.2 kWp) was significantly larger than the contribution of my batteries (21 kWh)... and reassured to see that I would payback this PV system in a couple of years.
