Life cycle analysis for solar powered portable car shade

A novel solar-powered portable car shade is proposed to eliminate the obstacles people faced while trying to find a shaded parking spot in the UAE, especially, during summer. The proposed system aims at providing the needed car shading along with a power source to operate lights, electric stoves, and to charge power banks, in particular, during camping. The implementation of this project should decrease the petrol used for air conditioning and produce extra power to operate auxiliary appliances. The system is composed mainly of an umbrella, three solar panels, and a Li-ion battery to store the excess power generated. This study aims at performing the life cycle analysis for the proposed solar-powered portable car shade using the Granta EduPackto to observe the energy usage, carbon footprint, and cost of the system. The relative contribution of life phases with respect to each phase was evaluated and discussed in detail with affording suitable solutions. The energy consumption during the disposal phase was the lowest with around 0.1% of the total energy consumption. On the other hand, the energy consumption during the material phase was around 52.6%. The carbon dioxide emissions and cost were close to 0 during the use phase and the material phase contributed to 98.1% of carbon dioxide emissions and 99.7% of the entire cost of the system.