STATUS OF LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT (LCA) OF SOLAR SYSTEMS IN NIGERIA

Abstract

Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), as a tool for analysing the environmental impacts of products
and services has been receiving increased attention from various researchers for over 20 years.
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Globally, over 25,000 articles linked to LCA were published in scientific journal databases
such as the Google scholar and Scopus; yet, the perception of LCA is comparatively
underdevelopment in most African countries particularly Nigeria, where the number of links
has been emphasised to be less when compared to other Africa's top economies. This article
reviewed the life cycle assessments that were carried out in Nigeria between the years 2010 to
2020, with the aim of establishing the existing research gap in the conduct of LCA of solar
systems in Nigeria. A total of 16 LCA articles were traced for the country; this number is lower
than that of other top economies like South Africa and Egypt with 41 and37 articles
respectively. Energy and Agricultural sectors have high number of articles (4 each), followed
by Electricity and Waste (3each), transport, and other sectors (1 article each); with no single
article on Photovoltaics Plant (PV Solar system). Most of these researches were conducted in
the southwestern Nigeria. Creating awareness on the importance of LCA of products,
establishment of a specific Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) database for Nigeria are some of the
steps identified to boost the number of LCA research articles to take care of Solar
photovoltaics