Digital product passports for renewable energy assets: A lifecycle information framework

Digital Product Passports (DPPs) connect product identity with lifecycle information for compliance, circularity and stakeholder access. Positive energy districts (PEDs) require this information to remain useable as renewable-energy assets undergo maintenance, component replacement and ownership changes. This study synthesises passport and engineering literature, regulations, standards and initiative documents for photovoltaic systems (PV), small wind turbines (SWTs) and asphalt solar collectors (ASCs). It develops eight shared lifecycle categories with extensions for electrical performance, mechanical condition, and thermal-hydraulic and road-infrastructure information. Four layers organise complementary information responsibilities: identity and lifecycle baseline; operational data and connectivity; semantic and derived information; and governance and exchange. Illustrative records for inverter replacement, bearing inspection and road-work handover explain how asset configurations, observations, assessments and permissions remain connected across lifecycle events. Representative mappings connect the field profile to external information models, while district scenarios show how current capability, availability and constraint records can inform energy management alongside storage and demand coordination. Stewardship, skills and incentives sustain these exchanges. A staged pathway connects shared field definitions, operational tasks and longitudinal assessment to guide implementation for district operation, repair, reuse and recovery.