Life-Cycle Assessment of Solar Charger with Integrated Organic Photovoltaics

Organic photovoltaics (OPV) applied in a commercial product comprising a solar charged power bank is subjected to a life cycle assessment (LCA) study. Regular power banks harvest electricity from the grid only. The solar power bank (called HeLi-on) is however, a power bank that includes a portable OPV panel, enabling the possibility to be charged from the sun, and not only from the grid.

In this paper, two well-established power bank products using amorphous silicon solar panels (a-Si PV) and a regular power bank without any portable solar panel is compared to HeLi-on. The environmental impact of the products is quantified with the aim of indicate where eco-design improvements would make a difference and to point out performance of a portable solar panel depending on the context of use (Denmark and China), realistic disposal scenarios and the recycling relevance particularly concerning metals content.