Evaluating Solar and Wind Sustainability Across Countries Through National Development Levels and Resource Availability
Abstract
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a crucial tool for monitoring the environmental impact of renewable energy systems. However, current approaches may not account for local socio-economic conditions and structural readiness without a large number of local data sets. The up-to-date carbon footprint assessment does not account for the huge gap between the maturity of infrastructure and the social context in different countries. To help bridge this gap, this work presents a new context-adjusted carbon-footprint assessment framework that embeds national preparedness and technological maturity into the LCA of solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind energy systems. The proposed model moves beyond traditional emission tracking by coupling site-specific resource availability, measured through the capacity factor (CF), with a technology development index (TDI). This index is an important indicator of socio-economic status and connects local economic conditions and energy infrastructures’ readiness. By employing different development scenarios in context, this study demonstrates the direct influence of structural differences on sustainability. The new socio-technical LCA approach that takes socio-economic and resource-specific factors into account in the context of development can be regarded as a robust and scalable tool to assess energy transitions across global contexts to ensure that equitable and rigorously informed decisions are made.