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.
Eroi solar panels.
30 to 40 years ahead of what the iea forecast in its 2014 solar technology roadmap.
10 to 15 years ahead of what i forecast in 2011.
That is to say the eroi of solar panels being made in 2013 is quite a bit higher than of solar panels made in 2000.
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.
In fact published eroeis for solar pv and wind might be called misleading.
That should be obvious increasing efficiency and lower energy costs per watt make it so.
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.
Solar power or nuclear power for example.
7 to 10 years ahead of what i forecast in 2015.
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.
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.
Studies have given figures for the eroi of solar energy as low as 3 9 and as high as 45 45.
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.
If we used only the estimates from 2010 on we d find an eroi for poly si solar of around 15.
In 2016 hall observed that much of the published work in this field is produced by advocates or persons with a connection to business interests among the competing technologies and that government agencies had not yet provided adequate funding for rigorous analysis by more neutral observers.
In the case of photovoltaic solar panels the iea method tends to focus on the energy used in the factory process alone.
In fact solar has reached prices today that are.
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.
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.
Actually solar energy has superb energy return on energy investment eroei 1 to 4.
