What are the emissions from building a solar park?

Panels, inverters and steel mounting structures carry most of the footprint as Scope 3 capital goods. Site work adds diesel for piling, cranes and trucks, at 2.68 kg CO2 per litre. These are one-off emissions, separate from the clean power the park then generates.

Count

• Modules, by kWp and supplier figure.
• Mounting steel and cables, by tonnes.
• Diesel for site equipment.

Payback

Construction emissions are repaid over time by the grid power the park displaces. Report them in the build year, not spread across generation.

What Senseible does here

Senseible reads bills, fuel invoices and production records into dated, fingerprinted records, so the figure you send a buyer can be traced to its documents.

• Solar panel embodied carbon
• Piling rig diesel per pile

Sources: GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard, GHG Protocol Corporate Standard

Last reviewed 2026-10-22.