Life Cycle Assessment Of Photovoltaic Industry And A Test Of Pollution Haven Hypothesis

With the rapid development of solar energy resources on a global scale, companies from developing countries have gradually deepen and extend their production on the global PV industry chain. However, this so-called "green energy" brings numerous of pollution problems to developing countries. So there have some questions. Why these pollution problems occur widely in the developing countries like China rather than developed countries? What developing countries could do to deal with these pollution problems? This article acquires the added value and pollution emissions through life cycle assessment and verifies the pollution haven hypothesis.This paper uses life cycle assessment on the each sector of global PV industry chain to acquire each sectors’ inputs, outputs. After calculated the added value and combined the value with pollution emissions, this paper analyzes the output location of different sectors and environmental regulation of different countries to verify the hypothesis. In addition, this paper also pursues further research on the trade situation and similarities and differences of developing and developed countries environmental regulation. Therefore, this paper not only achieves the verification but also could provide several information on policy decision.The conclusions are followed. Firstly, from the perspective of LCA, the added value and the pollution shows a trend of reverse relation. That is, the middle part of chain has a low added value and high intensity of pollution while the polysilicon production part has the highest added value and low intensity of pollution. Secondly, from the perspective of pollution haven hypothesis the hypothesis is verified. That is, the high intensity of environmental regulation in developed countries forcing the PV industry transfer to developing countries for production. Under the circumstances of verified the pollution haven hypothesis, the policy implications of this paper is that it not only further explores the impact of environmental regulation on the photovoltaic industry through pollution havens hypothesis, but also provides a new idea for the photovoltaic industry standards, enterprise innovation mechanism and international cooperation.