Life Cycle Analyses for Solar Thermal Collectors

The current drive towards including renewable and sustainable energy sources into energy consumption mix implies thorough studies on savings in materials, energy and waste management. Life cycle analyses are concerned with identification and quantification of each inputs and outputs of a product manufacturing process. This paper proposes complex life cycle analyses, that include assessment on inventory, analyses of energy payback time, life cycle cost and end of life applied to solar thermal collectors, as part of a solar conversion system. Results show that the categories with most impact, besides terrestrial toxicity, are human health, global warming and depletion of fossil fuels, that is, the main reasons to implement renewable energy sources.