Life cycle performance assessment of small solar thermal cooling systems and conventional plants assisted with photovoltaics

•LCA application to solar assisted H/C systems (with solar thermal or PV panels).•Assessment of primary energy consumption and greenhouse gases emission.•Final results very sensitive to climatic conditions and national electricity mix.•PV grid-connected plant performed better than the other systems.•Solar thermal systems performed best among the configurations comprising storages.

Starting from the results of a Life Cycle Assessment of small solar assisted heat driven chillers, the application of such methodology has been extended to systems with a conventional compression chiller assisted by a photovoltaic plant (PV). This study aims to provide a comprehensive compared investigation of these two families of solar assisted cooling systems (with solar thermal or PV). Results indicate that, in many cases, the systems with the PV grid connected plant performed best. In addition, two more configurations were investigated to further define the PV assisted systems, which minimise their interaction with the grid through the use of electricity storages. These systems performed worse than the PV grid connected systems and the solar thermal assisted systems in nearly all the analysed cases.