Eroi Solar Panels

Solar energy has low even counterproductive energy return on energy investment eroei short answer.

Eroi solar panels. 30 to 40 years ahead of what the iea forecast in its 2014 solar technology roadmap. There are a wide variety of estimates of solar pv s eroi as well in part because the technologies and production techniques are improving fast a major reason for the large price reductions over the past decade. Such claim if accurate would call into question many energy investment decisions. 7 to 10 years ahead of what i forecast in 2015.

50 to 100 years ahead of what the iea forecast in its 2010 world energy outlook depending on how one extrapolates iea s forecasts from 2010. However when the number is small. In the case of photovoltaic solar panels the iea method tends to focus on the energy used in the factory process alone. That should be obvious increasing efficiency and lower energy costs per watt make it so.

Solar power or nuclear power for example. Actually solar energy has superb energy return on energy investment eroei 1 to 4. Studies have given figures for the eroi of solar energy as low as 3 9 and as high as 45 45. Inman used the most recent peer reviewed study he could find raugei et al 2012 cited above.

When the eroi is large that means that producing energy from that source is relatively easy and cost effective. The goal of this study was to do a systematic review and a meta analysis of the embedded energy energy payback time epbt and energy return on energy invested eroi metrics for the crystalline si and thin film pv technologies published in 2000 2013. The result is a serious bias that tends to make the eroeis of solar pv as well as other intermittent energy sources such as wind appear far more favorable than they would be if a level playing field were used. The lowest estimate produced by weissbach et al was thoroughly discredited by technology entrepreneur ramez naam as glaringly low and he estimates the eroi of solar pv at above 10 and probably above 15 and rising.

In fact solar has reached prices today that are. If we used only the estimates from 2010 on we d find an eroi for poly si solar of around 15. A recent paper by ferroni and hopkirk 2016 asserts that the eroei also referred to as eroi of photovoltaic pv systems is so low that they actually act as net energy sinks rather than delivering energy to society. There is a fast growing interest in better understanding the energy performance of pv technologies as evidenced by a large number of recent studies published on this topic.

10 to 15 years ahead of what i forecast in 2011.