Industrial symbiosis in glass and solar photovoltaic manufacturing

In order to alleviate production costs and increase the environmental performance of solar photovoltaic (PV) manufacturing, an eco-industrial park for GW-scale production of PV is proposed. This article quantifies the inputs and outputs for the glass manufacturing component of such a system using standard manufacturing techniques. Utilizing industrial symbiosis in this way, potential reductions for such a plant were found to be about 30,000 tons/year in raw materials and over 220,000 GJ/year in embodied energy.

Schematic diagram of Industrial symbiosis in photovoltaic manufacturing. The highlighted red area is the industries studied in this project.

Full text

• Amir H. Nosrat, Jack Jeswiet, and Joshua M. Pearce, "Cleaner Production via Industrial Symbiosis in Glass and Large-Scale Solar Photovoltaic Manufacturing", Science and Technology for Humanity (TIC-STH), 2009 IEEE Toronto International Conference, pp.967-970, 26-27 Sept. 2009. open access
• Amir H. Nosrat, Robert Andrews, Jack Jeswiet, and Joshua M. Pearce, "Industrial symbiosis of a glass factory and greenhouses in photovoltaic manufacturing",(under review).

See also

• A literature review pertaining to industrial symbiosis can be found at the Industrial symbiosis literature review
• Industrial symbiosis in photovoltaic manufacturing
  • Joshua M. Pearce, "Industrial Symbiosis for Very Large Scale Photovoltaic Manufacturing", Renewable Energy 33, pp. 1101–1108, 2008. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2007.07.002 Open access [1]
• Greenhouse waste heat exchange
  • Rob Andrews and Joshua Pearce, "Environmental and Economic Assessment of a Greenhouse Waste Heat Exchange", Journal of Cleaner Production 19, pp. 1446-1454 (2011). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2011.04.016 Open access: [2]