Emission factor from MRPI EPD, product-specific

Mono-crystalline solar photovoltaic modules N-Type from JA Solar

Europe · Cradle to grave, embodied · Reference year 2025

Each unit of this product counts as 284 kg CO₂e over the modules its EPD declares: 256 to make it (A1–A3), 16.6 to deliver and place it (A4, A5) and 11.2 at end of life.

Value per unit, over the modules the EPD declares

284kgCO₂e/unit

EN 15804 modules A1 to A5 · Fossil only · GWP100 · AR5

Derived by open-climate.ai: the sum of MRPI's published parts

The one scenario this EPD declaresReference year 2025

Region
Europe
Boundary
Cradle to grave, embodied
Data quality
HighRated by us, not by the source
Licence
Open · MRPI terms
Declared by
JA Solar Technology Co., Ltd.

Where 284 comes from

Derived by open-climate.ai

Σ 284: the four declared modules add up to the total. D stays beside it.

Reporting this item under the GHG Protocol

This period

Scope 3, category 1 260 Scope 3, category 4 12.8

You buy the product for a building that is not yours. The product and its installation go to category 1, the delivery to category 4. The use stage belongs to the building owner; demolition waste you handle is category 5.

Later, when it happens

At end of life, in the year of demolition

  • End of life Scope 3, category 5 11.2

Outside the scopes, reported separately

  • D −18.1

B1 to B7 and C1 to C4 are not declared: nothing to report.

CiteAPI

The factor, standardised

Every factor on open-climate.ai answers the same questions in the same words, whatever the publisher. Open any ⓘ for the definition.

Manufactured goods › Electrical equipment · Europe · per item · Supplier-specific

Cradle to grave, embodied · Fossil only · AR5

Boundary
Cradle to grave, embodied
Raw materials, inbound transport, fuel supply, fuel combustion, manufacturing, packaging, purchased energy, installation, outbound transport and end of life
GWP method
IPCC AR5, 100-year horizon
Not on the record; set from MRPI's method notes · impact method EF 3.1
CO₂e basis
Fossil only
Split by carbon origin, not by gas
Life cycle
Upstream: coveredProduction: coveredDownstream: partly coveredEnd of life: covered

High quality · Open licence · Any year

Module by module, up to the total

Seventeen EN 15804 modules, always in the same order. Each declared one moves the running total. D sits below zero after the total, because it is reported beside it.

kgCO₂e per unit. Each bar starts where the one before ended. Pick a module to read it.
Product
A3not de­clared
Con­struc­tion
Use
B1 to B7not de­clared
End of life
C1not de­clared
Beyond the boundary

beside the total, not in it

What this number covers

Follow 1 unit of this product through EN 15804's stages. The total counts what the EPD declares; what it leaves out stays visible.

  1. A1-A3Product

    Raw material supply and transport to the plant; A3 not declared

    A1, A2242
  2. A4-A5Construction

    Delivery and installation

    Included16.6
  3. B1-B7Use

    The product in service: maintenance, repair, replacement and the energy and water it uses

    Not declared
  4. C1-C4End of life

    Waste transport to disposal; C1 not declared

    C2 to C411.2
  5. DBeyond the boundary

    Recovery after end of life

    Not in the total−18.1

Outside this boundary

  • Maintenance
  • Retail
  • Use phase
  • Recycling credit

Maintenance is out because B2 is not declared. The recycling credit is module D, shown beside the total.

Gases

  • Fossil CO₂e284
  • Biogenic CO₂e1.6
  • Land-use CO₂e0.171

The total counts fossil CO₂e. MRPI reports biogenic and land-use CO₂e separately; they are shown beside it, not added.

From MRPI's record to a comparable factor

MRPI publishes this EPD with one value per module. Each field as printed, and what open-climate.ai made of it.

The total and its modules

Use a module on its own when you report it in a different year or scope; never add one to the total.

You are here · the EPD total284
D beside−18.1
The four modules add up to the total; D stays beside it. Each opens its own page.

About this factor

From MRPI

What it is

Mono-crystalline solar photovoltaic modules N-Type from JA SolarScope and type: The solar panel is manufactured in the JA Solar factories Hefei, Xingtai and Yangzhou in China and are sold on the European market. End-of-life considered for this LCA is the Netherlands. This environmental performance is based on a specific supply chain and on life cycle assessments performed on each module factory. Therefore, it belongs to category 1 products, which is proprietary data from manufacturers and suppliers. The data has been verified by an independent, qualified third party in accordance with the NMD Verification Protocol. Background data are from Ecoinvent 3.6. The modelling has been done with Simapro 10.1.0.3.Representativeness: Solar cells are assembled together with the EVA, glass, frame and electrical connections to produce the finished solar modules in the production factories of JA Solar in Hefei, Xingtai and Yangzhou in China. The solar cells are composed of : • PolySi production (Sichuan Yongxiang New Energy Co., Ltd) • Ingot production from PolySi (JA Solar Qujing and Baotou factories) • Wafer production from ingot (JA Solar Qujing and Baotou factories) • Cell manufacturing from wafer (JA Solar Ningjin factory and JA Solar Yangzhou factory)Calculation rules: The study is based on a cradle to grave analysis i.e., from raw material extraction to the disposal of waste. Module D was calculated but only for information. It has been excluded from total impact calculation. Scenarios for transport to a relevant market (A4) is included in the assessment. An average transport distance from production site to relevant markets in Europe has been used to model the transport to site scenario in Netherlands, Europe. The present environmental performance corresponds to the maximum inventory of each product. The NMD allows to include multiple products in the same report only if the variation in results for each Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) category does not exceed +/- 20 %. : variation represents between 4 and 7% depending on the impact indicator. The maximum product has been defined as: the highest consumption of each input or highest inventory of the products in the environmental performance. The performance specifications similarities are respected for the environmental performance since the dimensions, manufacturing process and technology are the same for all the selected products. No cut-off criteria have been used in this study. The solar panel assembling modelling is based on data from March 2022 to February 2023. The DQR of the whole study is based on the DQR of each individual items (silicon solar grade; single-si wafer; photovoltaic cell; aluminium frame; solar glass; transport A4; End of Life C1-C4). These listed items represent at least 80% of all environmental impacts of solar panels studied (between 96.0% and 99.7% depending on the indicator). The DQR is 1.77.Scenarios and additional technical information A1-A3 : The solar panel is composed of two types of components: - The solar cells, accounting for the biggest part of solar panel lifecycle environmental impact. Its impact results from the successive transformation processes required to manufacture the solar cell: • PolySi production (Sichuan Yongxiang New Energy Co., Ltd) • Ingot production from PolySi (JA Solar Qujing and Baotou factories) • Wafer production from ingot (JA Solar Qujing and Baotou factories) • Cell manufacturing from wafer (JA Solar Ningjin factory and JA Solar Yangzhou factory) - Other components such as glass, EVA, PET, ribbons, and the junction box The LCA inventories have been used to model the following processes: • PolySi recycling process, considering JA Solar Qujing LCA, validated by ADEME in 2023 • Ingot production, considering JA Solar Qujing LCA, validated by ADEME in 2023 • Wafer production, considering JA Solar Qujing LCA, validated by ADEME in 2023 • Solar panel assembling, considering JA Solar Xingtai, Hefei, Yanghzou factories LCA, For the PolySi production, the IEA dataset was used in SimaPro, with the electricity mix being adapted based on the actual factory data. The reference factory is considered as Sichuan Yongxiang New Energy Co., Ltd. For cell production, the IEA dataset was used, with only electricity consumption being adapted based on the actual factory data. The solar panel assembling modelling is based on data from March 2022 to February 2023. Waste from the production (A1-A3) has the following “end-of-waste” status: • End-of-waste status for solid waste that is incinerated: after transported to the incineration plant and incinerated (thermal treatment); • End-of-waste status for hazardous waste: after transported to the incineration plant and incinerated (thermal treatment); • End-of-waste status for solid waste that is recycled: after transported to the recycling plant and sorted and shredded. This study is based on a specific supply chain and on LCA using 2022–2023 data, covering all manufacturing processes from polysilicon production to module assembly in China. Electricity modelling follows the market-based approach using the consumption electricity mix (case 4b, Table 2 of the ECO Platform LCA Calculation Rules), as the Chinese Green Electricity Certificates (GECs) were implemented after the period covered by the LCA data. Actual electricity consumption data from the LCA inventories were used throughout the study. The Chinese national electricity mix was applied to ingot, brick, wafer, cell, and module production, while a regional electricity mix was used for polysilicon production, in order to ensure the best representativeness of the assessment.Declaration of SVHC: In compliance with the REACH Regulation, JA Solar declares that SVHC represents less than 0.1% in their PV modules .More information: https://www.jasolar.com/html/french/

What it includes

Mono-crystalline solar photovoltaic modules are designed to be installed on roofs or as stand-alone systems for local power production. All the modules included in this LCA are double glass and the solar cells are produced with TOPCON process. Solar cells are assembled together with the EVA, glass, frame and electrical connections to produce the finished solar module in the production factories Hefei JA Solar Technology Co., Ltd. (Hefei), JA Solar (Xingtai)Co.,Ltd. (Xingtai) and JA Solar New Energy Yangzhou CO., Ltd(Jingshan Park) (Yangzhou) in China. LCA's were performed in each module factory on the following modules references: JAM78D40/MB, JAM72D40/MB, JAM54D40/MB, JAM72D42/LB, JAM66D45/LB, JAM72D40/LB, JAM54D40/41/LR, JAM66D42/MB, JAM54D40/41/LR, JAM60D40/41/42/LB. The present environmental performance corresponds to the maximum inventory of each product. The NMD allows to include multiple products in the same report only if the variation in results for each Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) category does not exceed +/- 20 % (for all the mandatory impact indicators, the variation is under the 20% threshold). The performance specifications similarities are respected for the environmental performance since the dimensions, manufacturing process and technology are the same for all the selected products. For this study, the reference is the module JAM78D40/MB, as it is the most conservative with the maximum size of 2,795m² and the power of 655Wp. The score per FU increases with the size of the module. Therefore this EPD study is representative for all modules listed previously. Values in the tables below refer to the maximum inventory of each component, that means the highest consumption of each intrant. There is one table per category of input. Table 1 refers to the mains components. The reference service life of the product is 30 years, based on the warranty presented in the datasheets.

Where it applies

Mono-crystalline solar photovoltaic modules are designed to be installed on roofs or as stand-alone systems for local power production. All the modules included in this LCA are double glass and the solar cells are produced with TOPCON process. Solar cells are assembled together with the EVA, glass, frame and electrical connections to produce the finished solar module in the production factories Hefei JA Solar Technology Co., Ltd. (Hefei), JA Solar (Xingtai)Co.,Ltd. (Xingtai) and JA Solar New Energy Yangzhou CO., Ltd(Jingshan Park) (Yangzhou) in China. LCA's were performed in each module factory on the following modules references: JAM78D40/MB, JAM72D40/MB, JAM54D40/MB, JAM72D42/LB, JAM66D45/LB, JAM72D40/LB, JAM54D40/41/LR, JAM66D42/MB, JAM54D40/41/LR, JAM60D40/41/42/LB. The present environmental performance corresponds to the maximum inventory of each product. The NMD allows to include multiple products in the same report only if the variation in results for each Life Cycle Impact Assessment (LCIA) category does not exceed +/- 20 % (for all the mandatory impact indicators, the variation is under the 20% threshold). The performance specifications similarities are respected for the environmental performance since the dimensions, manufacturing process and technology are the same for all the selected products. For this study, the reference is the module JAM78D40/MB, as it is the most conservative with the maximum size of 2,795m² and the power of 655Wp. The score per FU increases with the size of the module. Therefore this EPD study is representative for all modules listed previously. Values in the tables below refer to the maximum inventory of each component, that means the highest consumption of each intrant. There is one table per category of input. Table 1 refers to the mains components. The reference service life of the product is 30 years, based on the warranty presented in the datasheets.

Source and licence

Value
Summed by open-climate.ai from its parts
Publisher
MRPI (Stichting MRPI)
Published
2 October 2026
Valid until
31 December 2030
See the source data at MRPI

The values and their metadata are served in full and may be reused with credit to the publisher.

Credit it with this lineMRPI (Stichting MRPI), EPD data from https://data.mrpi.nl
A plain reading of the licence, not legal advice. The licence text prevails.

Cite this factor

MRPI (Stichting MRPI), EPD data from https://data.mrpi.nl. Normalised by open-climate.ai, https://open-climate.ai/factors/libraries/mrpi/ (CC BY 4.0). https://open-climate.ai/factors/ef-mrpi-monocrystalline_solar-europe-unit-cradle_to_grave_embodied-88feb41c/?v=efv1-bfc252539af6f8d93573c84b639e71f9

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