Life cycle multi-objective (geospatial, techno-economic, and environmental) feasibility and potential assessment of utility scale photovoltaic power plants

Bridging the gap between sustainability theory and good practice of utility-scale photovoltaic deployment re-quires strategic planning considering multiple criteria. This study, for the first time, integrates meteorological and air quality parameters and lifecycle costs and environmental emissions with geospatial, techno-economic parameters in determining potential and suitability of photovoltaic power plants. For two system orientations, technical potential based on timeseries of meteorological parameters is estimated after development of irradi-ance and aerosol optical depth maps. Besides others, project lifecycle and water-use costs are introduced in levelized cost of electricity calculation. Site suitability is estimated based on site-specific techno-economic pa-rameters and annual dust load. Lastly, comparison between lifecycle environmental impacts, considering twelve different indicators of proposed plant and natural-gas fired power plant (as reference) is performed for different capacity powerplants. Cumulative resource potential ranging from 7497 to 14141 GW is identified for Pakistan. Levelized Cost of Electricity is in range of 0.026-0.041 USD/kWh, highly competitive with global estimates and less than the residential tariff in the country. Major contribution (-81%) to the cost estimates is made by capital generation whereas the second highest is by infrastructure-parity components (-12%). With inclusion of aerosol optical depth in site suitability analysis, the extremely suitable class area decreases by 3.81%. Overall, net environmental impact avoided over the lifecycle increases with increase in rated capacity following a logistic curve, and is approximately 5 and 10 times higher for 50 and 100 MW power plants, respectively.

Automated summary

This study integrates meteorological and air quality parameters, lifecycle costs and environmental emissions with geospatial, techno-economic parameters to determine potential and suitability of photovoltaic power plants. Strategic planning is required to bridge the gap between sustainability theory and good practice.