Life-Cycle Net Externalities of Photovoltaic Plants and Their Associated Factors in Southwest China

Existing life-cycle assessments of photovoltaic (PV) systems remain largely single-case and burden-focused, providing limited multi-plant evidence on monetized net environmental value and its associated factors. Using project-level data from 239 ground-mounted utility-scale PV plants in Southwest China, this study calculates the life-cycle net environmental value as the difference between avoided-emission benefits from displaced grid electricity and monetized life-cycle environmental impacts. Under the baseline provincial grid-average emission factor of 0.3075 kg CO2/kWh and a 7% discount rate, the mean net environmental value is CNY 61.37 million per plant. Elastic-Net is used to decompose and rank correlated monetized LCA components, while OLS and moderation models examine the associations of plant scale, resource endowment, financial characteristics, module technology, permanent-land acquisition investment, and annual PV-array land rent with the net environmental value. Materials for recycling, hazardous waste, and renewable primary energy use are identified as the leading components associated with the variation in the net environmental value. The installed capacity shows the strongest association with the total net environmental value, while the financial characteristics, module technology, and land allocation also exhibit significant associations. Sensitivity analyses use lower and upper provincial grid emission factors and vary non-carbon shadow prices by ±30%. The findings provide plant-level evidence for integrating life-cycle environmental impacts, technology, and land conditions into PV project appraisal.