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Global Warming Impacts of Residential Electricity Consumption: Agent‐Based Modeling of Rooftop Solar Panel Adoption in Los Angeles County, California

Solar photovoltaics (PV) are a renewable electricity technology with lower carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) impacts compared to fossil electricity, making it a technology of interest with respect to combatting global climate change. This paper combines agent‐based modeling (ABM) with life cycle assessment (LCA) to simulate rooftop solar PV adoption in Los Angeles (LA) County from 2018–2050 and generate CO2e impact data at the societal level to compare PV and grid electricity. With respect to solar PV panels, consumer adoption is the “pull” that moves the system and corresponding life cycle CO2e impacts forward. ABM is used to evaluate the impact of policies and evolutions in technology regarding the adoption of solar PV. Life cycle assessment is used to quantify the life cycle CO2e impacts of solar PV (including raw materials, manufacturing, and use). The results show that scenarios that increase PV adoption also increase the CO2e impacts from solar PV use in the short term, due to the raw materials and manufacturing portions of the life cycle. Yet, in the long term, adoption of solar PV may provide CO2e impact savings from offsetting grid electricity (although this is dependent on the carbon intensity of the electricity sources). The CO2e impacts of solar panels are dominated by the raw materials and manufacturing phases on a product level basis, but the use phase contributes to the majority of environmental impact savings from an adoption and societal‐level perspective. Future work may apply the methodology to other locations in the United States to evaluate if solar panels are an advantageous electricity source compared to the environmental impacts of the electricity grid. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2020;16:1008–1018. © 2020 SETAC