# What are the emissions from building a solar park?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/solar-park-construction-emissions

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](https://senseible.earth/answers/solar-panel-embodied-carbon-per-kwp)
- [Piling rig diesel per pile](https://senseible.earth/answers/piling-rig-diesel-emissions-per-pile)

Sources: [GHG Protocol Corporate Value Chain (Scope 3) Standard](https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-value-chain-scope-3-standard), [GHG Protocol Corporate Standard](https://ghgprotocol.org/corporate-standard)

Last reviewed 2026-10-22.