The foundational data underpinning nearly every credible life cycle assessment (LCA) of PV solar electricity has just received its most comprehensive overhaul since 2020 — and in some respects its most thorough update in more than a decade. A new report from IEA PVPS Task 12, “Life Cycle Inventories of Photovoltaic Systems,” provides updated inventory data covering the full crystalline silicon supply chain for TOPCon and PERC cell technologies, CdTe thin-film modules, string inverters, mounting structures, and reference systems for residential, commercial, and utility-scale installations. The datasets are freely available through the IEA PVPS website and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences repository, and are fully compatible with the newly released open-source BAFU:2025 Swiss federal life cycle assessment (LCA) database.
For anyone conducting or commissioning a life cycle assessment, an environmental product declaration, a green finance disclosure, or a procurement-linked sustainability assessment of PV solar products, this report is the new baseline.
The centrepiece of this update is a large and well-documented dataset for monocrystalline silicon supply chains, assembled from 83 screened, factory-level life cycle assessments collected through France’s ADEME’s PV tender programme between 2022 and 2025.These data were originally collected in the context of the French photovoltaic tender process operated by ADEME and cover all relevant supply chain steps of selected PV module production lines. Data control and aggregation were performed by École des Mines de Paris, while expert review, analysis, aggregation and anonymization were carried out by Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives (CEA) within the French Institute of Solar Energy (INES) and CERTISOLIS France introduced carbon performance criteria into its solar tenders as early as 2013 through the CRE2, CRE3, CRE4, and PPE2 frameworks. The data used by IEA PVPS Task 12 originate solely from the PPE2 framework and has generated what is now the largest independently verified, factory-level LCA database for PV manufacturing available.
The 83 datasets retained after screening and consistency checks cover all key supply chain stages from polysilicon purification through ingot and brick production, wafer slicing, cell manufacturing, laminate production, and module assembly. Relative to global production capacity, they represent approximately 29% of polysilicon, 16% of wafer, 7% of cell, and 9% of module production — figures that the authors describe as representing unusually high market coverage for public PV LCI data. Of the 83 factories assessed, 82 are located in China, which reflects the actual structure of global c-Si manufacturing rather than any selection bias: China accounts for approximately 93% of global polysilicon production, 96% of wafer production, 90.3% of cell production, and 86.1% of crystalline silicon module production in 2024.
The CdTe dataset was provided directly by First Solar, which accounts for more than 90% of global CdTe module production. Both the Series 6 and Series 7 module platforms are covered.
The report notes that the c-Si datasets “may be slightly biased towards lower-carbon supply chains” — the hedging in that phrasing is deliberate and worth preserving. The 83 factories are largely export-oriented Chinese plants that may use more advanced, material-efficient processes than the broader global average, meaning the data could over-represent export-grade products rather than the full spectrum of global manufacturing. That is a representativeness limitation rather than carbon cherry-picking. Whereas Task 12’s LCI data may not best represent PV manufactured for the domestic Chinese market or a global production average, they are more representative of export-oriented production, which supplies most PV deployed outside China.
Crucially, the report also addresses the main mechanism through which a more direct carbon bias could enter the dataset — individual manufacturers reporting site-specific electricity mixes cleaner than their national grid — and adds that the Task 12 inventories apply country-average electricity mixes throughout the supply chain regardless of what individual manufacturers reported. This correction substantially limits the scope of any residual bias.
The practical guidance remains the same as the report itself provides: the datasets are well suited as generic background data, screening inventories, and harmonised reference benchmarks. For comparative LCA involving specific manufacturers or procurement decisions, foreground data from the relevant producers should be used wherever available, with the Task 12 inventories serving as reference points rather than substitutes.
For the first time, the Task 12 report introduces a parallel category of modelled rather than measured LCI data, developed by Fraunhofer ISE. These datasets represent a simulated, optimised monocrystalline silicon manufacturing site of 5 GWp annual capacity, modelling advanced production processes, such as closed-loop water management, waste valorisation, and detailed infrastructure accounting. They cover both PERC and TOPCon cell technology and include scenarios for circular production strategies — a revalorised waste scenario, a minimal liquid discharge scenario for PERC, and a rinse water recycling scenario for TOPCon.
The practical significance is considerable: compared with industry datasets from the 1999–2006 period that underpinned earlier LCAs, the simulated facility shows environmental impact reductions of between 11.7% and 94.3% across 14 of 15 impact categories assessed using the EU’s Environmental Footprint methodology. The authors stress that simulated and measured datasets are not interchangeable and should not be used as if they were equivalent. But for forward-looking studies — such as assessing technology roadmaps, analysing prospective manufacturing scenarios, or stress-testing procurement assumptions — the Fraunhofer ISE data provide a valuable complement to the industry-measured inventories. And in fact, the simulated LCI compares very closely to the empirical LCI in aggregated environmental impact scores, increasing confidence in both datasets.
The shift from PERC to TOPCon as the dominant c-Si cell technology is central to this update. TOPCon, which uses an ultra-thin tunnel oxide layer and doped polysilicon passivated contacts to achieve higher conversion efficiencies, is now rapidly replacing PERC across Chinese manufacturing. The report assumes efficiencies of 21.7% for p-type PERC and 23.2% for n-type TOPCon modules, reflecting 2024 commercial averages. Within TOPCon manufacturing, the report distinguishes between LPCVD and PECVD deposition routes for the polysilicon passivated contact layer, which have different energy and gas use profiles.
Multi-crystalline silicon does not appear in the update at all, given that the technology has effectively disappeared from the market and thus is relegated to the annex. CIGS and perovskite-silicon tandem datasets are similarly not updated, though the latter is flagged as a priority for inclusion once commercial-scale manufacturing data become available, with market entry expected as early as 2027.
The reference system architecture has also been revised. The previous 3 kWp residential reference system — long a standard in PV LCA communication — has been replaced with a 10 kWp residential system, reflecting the upward trend in actual installation sizes across major markets. Average residential system sizes grew from 2.65 kW in Australia in 2012 to 9.7 kW by 2024; US median residential system sizes rose from 5.2 kW in 2011 to 7.4 kW in 2023. The report now covers three reference systems: the 10 kW residential rooftop, a 250 kW commercial rooftop, and a 10 MW utility-scale ground-mounted system.
The report’s outlook section sets out a ranked set of priorities for the next revision cycle, distinguishing between areas of highest urgency and those of comparatively lower urgency.
The top priority is continued revision of crystalline silicon manufacturing data, which remains the dominant driver of environmental impacts in global PV electricity generation. Despite the substantial improvements this edition delivers for TOPCon and PERC, the market is diversifying rapidly: future updates are flagged to include silicon heterojunction, back-contact cells, and advanced TOPCon variants as soon as representative industrial data become available. Module-level inventories will also need updating to reflect ongoing changes in wafer size, wafer thickness, kerf loss, silver consumption, cell interconnection, and the growing prevalence of glass-glass and frameless module designs.
The second priority is commercially relevant emerging technologies, above all perovskite-silicon tandem PV, which remains absent from updated inventories pending the commercial-scale production data expected once the technology enters the market.
Balance-of-system datasets are the third priority, with particular attention called for on utility-scale systems increasingly designed around single-axis trackers, larger module formats, and higher DC/AC ratios. Rooftop BOS is explicitly flagged as a priority for the next revision.
For the PV industry and the broader ecosystem of developers, financiers, policymakers, and sustainability professionals who rely on LCA to evaluate and communicate the environmental case for PV solar energy, this report provides the most credible and transparently documented reference dataset currently available.
The full report and its corresponding LCI tables are available here.
Authory: Garvin Heath, Matthias Stucki, Michael Götz and Nouha Gazbour
Copy editor: Ignacio Landivar
IEA PVPS Task 12 aims to quantify the environmental profile of PV systems relative to other energy technologies and address critical environmental, health, safety, and sustainability issues to support market growth.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own, and do not necessarily reflect those held by pv magazine.
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