Eroei Solar Panels

The energy return on energy invested eroei or eroi of any energy gathering system is a measure of that system s efficiency.

Eroei solar panels.

Energy has played a critical role throughout human society s demographic economic and social development. That s why we should compare what s comparable. Wind energy does better than that with an average eroei around 20. Eroei calculations for solar pv are misleading.

In today s energy mix hydroelectric power nuclear power have values 50. If we do that we find that for instance photovoltaics has an eroei around 10. That is use the same rules for evaluating the eroei of fossil fuels and of renewable energy. That should be obvious increasing efficiency and lower energy costs per watt make it so.

The energy returned on energy invested eroei concept is very frequently used in energy studies. Not bad but not as large as crude oil in the good old days. 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. To be considered viable as a prominent fuel or energy source a fuel or energy must have an eroei ratio of at least 3 1.

Eroei usable acquired energy energy expended it seems so simple. If the amount of energy produced relative to the amount of energy utilized in producing that energy tends to decline at some point as the ratio approaches 1 0 or perhaps even becomes a fraction less than 1 0 there is little if any return on the energy invested and society will collapse. The availability and quality of various energy and material resources to a society is linked to the general trend of the settlement growth and eventual decline experienced by each civilization white 1959 tainter 1988 a society must have an energy surplus for there. In fact many readers seem to think of course eroei is what we should be looking at when comparing different types of energy.

Such claim if accurate would call into question many energy investment decisions. Abstract 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. A related measure energy stored on energy invested is used to analyse storage systems. If we used only the estimates from 2010 on we d find an eroi for poly si solar of around 15.

The concept was originally derived in ecology and has been transferred to analyse human industrial society. Studies have given figures for the eroi of solar energy as low as 3 9 and as high as 45 45. 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.