System development and environmental performance analysis of textile envelope integrated flexible photovoltaic using life cycle assessment approach

The textile envelope integrated flexible photovoltaic (TE-FPV) system is an emerging technology to promote building sustainability due to its lightweight structure, textile recovery easily, and renewable energy production. We develop six TE-FPV prototypes to determine its advantages of environmental performance. Especially, the systems with the solar cells directly printed on the textile are designed to show the promising sustainability prospect. A cradle-to-cradle life cycle assessment is conducted, and the results are compared to traditional building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) technologies. The life cycle inventories of some textiles and solar cells are the first time to be developed. Based on the inventories, life cycle impact assessment is implemented to figure out various environmental impact categories. Furthermore, uncertainty analyses and sensitivity analyses are performed to unmask the effects of parameters on the fluctuation of environmental indicators. The results present that most of TE-FPV systems perform more sustainable and more recyclable over the traditional BIPV systems. The organic solar cell is unfavorable for the TE-FPV systems due to its low power conversion efficiency and short lifespan. ETFE envelope integrated perovskite solar cell systems show vast prospective potential in environmental performances. This work contributes significantly required environmental quantifications to promote the advancement of TE-FPV systems.