The Use of Renewable Energy Sources in the Food Industry and the Reduction of CO2 Emissions: A Case Study of a Simulated PV Installation

Abstract

This study includes a simulation of two variants of a 1 MW photovoltaic farm, differing in the types of photovoltaic modules used in the PVSyst program. The first uses monofacial modules, and the second uses bifacial. The studies showed an 8% increase in the energy obtained in the variant with bifacial modules, under the assumed simulation conditions. In the next stage, an environmental analysis was carried out using the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) method with a “gate-to-gate” approach for the mass packaging process in three different variants, differing in the source of energy powering the machines in the SimaPro program. In the first variant, electricity from the national energy mix was used. In the second, in addition to energy from the same mix, natural gas was additionally used in the shrinking stage of the film. In the third variant, energy obtained from a previously designed photovoltaic farm was considered. The results showed an about 80% reduction in the carbon footprint of the tested process in the case of changing the energy source to energy from a PV installation.