Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumTilting at Windmills, Spain’s disastrous attempt to replace fossil fuels with Solar Photovoltaics
This is a review of a recent book written by the noted energy academic Charles Hall and Pedro Prieto. It is the first in-depth look at the EROI of large-scale PV in a developed nation.
This is the first time an estimate of Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROI) of solar Photovoltaics (PV) has been based on real data from the sunniest European country, with accurate measures of generated energy from over 50,000 installations using several years of real-life data from optimized, efficient, multi-megawatt and well oriented facilities.
Other life cycle and energy payback time analyses used models that left out dozens of energy inputs, leading to overestimates of energy such as payback time of 1-2 years (Fthenakis), EROI 8.3 (Bankier), and EROI of 5.9 to 11.8 (Raugei et al).
Prieto and Hall added dozens of energy inputs missing from past solar PV analyses. Perhaps previous studies missed these inputs because their authors weren’t overseeing several large photovoltaic projects and signing every purchase order like author Pedro Prieto. Charles A. S. Hall is one of the foremost experts in the world on the calculation of EROI. Together they’re a formidable team with data, methodology, and expertise that will be hard to refute.
Prieto and Hall conclude that the EROI of solar photovoltaic is only 2.45, very low despite Spain’s ideal sunny climate. Germany’s EROI is probably 20 to 33% less (1.6 to 2), due to less sunlight and efficient rooftop installations.
Prieto and Hall also mention that the biggest problem Spain faced was a lack of R&D investment in solar. Unlike the situation in China, Spanish interest in solar power tended to concentrate on the financial incentives including the banks' eagerness to extend easy credit. According to the book, about 44,000 of the nation’s 57,900 PV installations are now almost bankrupt, and companies continue to fail and downsize.
If their EROI estimate of 2.45:1 is accurate, along with Dr. Hall's speculation that modern civilization needs an overall EROI of 5:1 in order to remain functional, the future of PV may be only as a niche player, rather than the world-powering energy source that techno-cornucopians like Mark Z. Jacobson imagine.
Much more information in the article.
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Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)these findings could mean, PV is poised to take a major leap in EROI ... once a critical mass of people decide to invest, as much effort and resources, into developing the technology, as they do poo poohing it.
As an admittedly ignorant observer of this issue, it would seem that all energy technology started off slow ... until industry figured out a way to make more money on it, than they were making on the preceding technology.
phantom power
(25,966 posts)
Iterate
(3,020 posts)just before the solar install, and when the gas price spiked (and with little to no pipeline supply), they found they couldn't possibly pay for those gas plants without hamstringing solar first. Btw, France has the same problem right across the border.
Plus, Spanish politics, their economy, and their lack of planning is a highly complex topic; none of their current state can be understood without considering that first. Spreading this is beneath you.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Plus it's extremely skeptical about the potential of solar power in Spain. That makes me even more eager to give it some exposure.
On edit: The significant part of this work appears to be their EROI estimate of 2.45:1. If they're right about that, the rest of your objections are moot.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)More like "Point out the downsides that people like you and jpak never see fit to mention, let alone give any credence."
Unfortunately, there are enough downsides that mentioning them looks like undermining to the true believers.
BTW - I thought you respected Charlie Hall?
kristopher
(29,798 posts)GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)I'm just a schnook on the internet with a locally unpopular opinion. But if you see me as having that much power, I'm thrilled!
kristopher
(29,798 posts)GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)is to talk about how fucked humanity is, and how throwing more energy of any sort at the problem is not going to solve or even mitigate it. If I'm out to undermine anything, it's not renewable energy. It's human civilization in its entirety. Like Keith Farnish:
Underminers is the timely follow-up to Time’s Up! An Uncivilized Solution to a Global Crisis. It takes up where that book left off, with a detailed, highly practical approach to the process of undermining in all its many hues. At once entertaining, shocking and inspiring, Underminers draws on the author’s own experience dealing at first hand with the lies of the industrial machine, and that of a wide range of other people who have their own unique take on the swath of topics covered in the book.
From the reasons we are unable to act, to the nitty-gritty of keeping ourselves and others safe during the undermining process, the first half of the book is an invaluable guide to navigating the industrial system and becoming a fully-formed Underminer. The second half details, with surprising openness how the reader can utilize their abilities and new-found determination to be an effective Underminer; whether that be undermining the advertising industry or the political machine, turning symbolic protestors into real activists, building self-determined communities or simply being ourselves – connected, free human beings.
We are the Underminers, and this is our time.
Renewable energy and nuclear power are just soft targets of opportunity.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)Especially given the lack of reasoned content in those efforts. The recurrent antirenewable subtext seem far more germane to your intended message.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)That's because you're monomaniacal about renewable energy. All critiques of "sustainable solutions" get run through the filter of your mania, and come out looking like attempts to undermine your favourite toy.
I am critical of a lot more things than just renewable energy, you know. Frankly, I'm critical about virtually everything that modern civilization does or believes.
bananas
(27,509 posts)You're living in the past.
A past that didn't even happen.
Get over it.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)You can't, because I have never said that. Your statement is a lie.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Chief among those factors is climate change, followed by ocean acidification, fresh water decline, chemical pollution and excessive social complexity.
Peak Oil may be a factor in why excessive social complexity becomes an intractable problem.
When? Who knows? I personally think it will be around 2040, ±10 years.
Iterate
(3,020 posts)But I am always puzzled a bit by reductionists who professionally fancy themselves as system ecologists (I assume that means the human ecosystem?), but don't care for the nitty-gritty details of culture, history, or interaction. I'd envy them if I could -it's all so messy. Why not just grab a bit of econ, a pinch of physics, and call it bio?
They did go to this social edge and then retreated, never questioning why this was the case:
I have to start (and save misdirection/wasted posts) with saying I'm not against studying energy flows in systems or even finding a useful reduction. Beyond that I don't know where to start; I do know that a deconstruction like this involves about 15 pages for every one they wrote. Call it the DROI, 15:1.
Since neither of us could endure that, I'll start at the end, the index number, the reductionist's stopping point. Correct or not, it's low. But that's the bloody point isn't it -all future EROIs will be low, because the party is over (except for a few, who want to break out the heroin). We already knew that.
I wasn't going to get into methodology, but I do have to say I wouldn't put my name on that paper for all the world. Whether it's intellectually dishonest or simply naively chosen to reach an expected conclusion, take your pick.
An EROI for a given tech can change over time, of course, and it depends also on the scale or centralization. But they've forgotten, or don't see, that the R, the energy return, which supposedly has a physical value, a reality, also has a social meaning that changes over time. In the 1890s 2kW would be priceless, pre-embargo or consumer heyday not so much. In a post-consumer world, which we both agree is coming, that 2kW will have a different mean yet again. I hope the next meaning of 2kW is of something valued and not to be wasted, as well as a personal limit. If we do that, we might survive. A nice return, in other words.
My second named objection is more functional; that is that when an index value like this is created, it gets detached from it's original meaning and starts behaving like a free-floating meme. Anyone with any agenda or ideology can claim it, attach it, abuse it. In fact, the number didn't make it out of the author's own paper without that happening.
To me its only value then becomes that of a Rorschach test; tell me what you think of it, and I'll tell you your world view.
Finally the biggest objection: by sticking with reductionist thinking and omitting the social context (which they could have done, add a few more authors), they missed what would have been a useful, possibly universal, conclusion. Spain's infrastructure build-out shortcomings were not limited to a few solar plants, or even the electricity infrastructure. It goes to roads, airports, rail, housing, tourist facilities, you name it; it was nearly the same story. Projects were handed out to the regions, interest groups, power centers. No inherent conflict between those elements was resolved. It almost literally was paved over.
The big story, the one that would have make the book valuable (and without it worthless), was simply that Spain didn't plan, or more more specifically, Spain didn't plan democratically. There was no decade of Monday night meetings (bonus points for an ID of that reference), no rounds of citizen involvement, no consensus view reached over time, no resolution of incompatibilities. Instead, everybody got a cut. And the consequences of that are not over, because without that consensus support, I don't see how any government there in power will have the ability to shut down cheap coal or the overbuilt gas turbines.
And it also could be that they missed the chance for one lone citizen to notice that there was one energy technology that is quiet, nonvolatile, and safe to live next to. It's not concentrated, but in a neighborhood that's an advantage. No need to unnecessarily centralize it. Save on grid costs. Save on fences, roads. Co-produce in pastures.
You say it's moot, or outside the scope, I say the authors, by omitting it, either intentionally or by being blind through their own assumptions, reached a self-serving conclusion that is otherwise worthless or even damaging.
I wonder, what is the EROI of 10,000 citizen meetings?
Yo_Mama
(8,303 posts)The question is whether their analysis is correct or not. What is being measured is not Investment Return, but Energy Return. In other words, the figure they came up with was that for every 1 unit of net energy invested, the solar plant cycle in Spain will return 2.45 units.
That's surprisingly low for a country like Spain, but the analysis must be critiqued on that basis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_returned_on_energy_invested
You don't change energy out by financial policies.
This is still a better return by far than we get in the US from corn-based ethanol:
http://netenergy.theoildrum.com/node/6760
But a ratio that low does call into question the practicality of it as a prime source of energy.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)First, according to the analysis itself, their actual number (as EROI is normally used) is nearly 3X higher than the one you've been fed in the OP -7.35:1.
Second, they seem to have included inputs that are of questionable validity, they use the term 'broad boundaries' which they admit being criticized for. The looseness of the term and the lack of information provided means those boundaries could be drawn around a completely absurd premise; for example, solar as the lone energy supplier to a centrally based system and all of the associated infrastructure to enable a society to function on solar is costed against solar's output.
Third, they used money as a proxy for energy in many cases. I presume this means that lowering costs equals raising the ROEI. Since most of Spain's infrastructure was placed before the cost of modules dropped so dramatically over the past 3 years, should we assume the EROEI they are supposedly calculating posted a corresponding increase?
jpak
(41,757 posts)Fail.
Yup
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Life's like that sometimes.
jpak
(41,757 posts)Spain should burn imported coal and natural gas - much higher ROEI than the bad ol' solar/wind debacle...
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)
hunter
(38,309 posts)It becomes irresistibly profitable to fill in the production gaps of solar or wind generated electricity with fossil-fuel generated electricity.
Any electric power network capable of absorbing the peak output of these solar and wind projects will also be used to distribute fossil fuel generated electricity when solar and wind projects are not producing at their peak levels unless the use of fossil fueled or nuclear power is specifically banned on these networks.
Otherwise, increasing the capacity of networks for solar and wind power simply increases the capacity of the network to deliver fossil fueled or nuclear power.
Many proposed wind and solar projects for the Western U.S.A. have been quite obvious Trojan Horses. Build a 2000 megawatt line into California, purportedly to serve great wind or solar farms, and then, when the sun's not shining or the winds not blowing, sell California cheap not-in-their-backyard coal generated electricity. Profit!
Solar and wind projects that share power networks with fossil fuels or nuclear power are simply greenwash. Maybe these projects slow down this train to hell we are riding, but only by a negligible amount and they cannot stop or reverse the train's direction.
The only way to stop using fossil fuels is to stop using fossil fuels, to leave them in the ground. No other technology will replace them. I doubt very much, especially seeing these numbers, that solar or wind alone, even with huge pumped storage projects, super-batteries, smart technology etc., can support the sort of electric power networks we now enjoy.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)Since it is about as valid as the claims of a flat-earthed and just as disproven, I'm betting you have no sourcing for your statements.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)This write up from an IEEE engineering publication has more details.
Part I begins with a discussion about the history and importance of solar energy to human civilization, the concept of EROI, and society’s hierarchy of energetic needs. Prieto and Hall propose that we need an EROI of 12-14 to 1 to maintain our current level of civilization. This chapter also includes background on Spain’s history and how Spain’s high insolation levels and feed-in-tariff programs have provided an attractive platform for the rapid deployment of PV.
Part II provides background on evolution of the Spanish electricity supply.
Part III includes detail on the various technologies used in PV installations throughout the country comparing the benefits and costs of one and two axis tracking systems with fixed axis systems as well as a discussion about PV module sourcing issues. It also includes a description of the unique financial structures required to successfully finance large PV projects in Spain and the impacts of generous feed-in-tariff programs on state budgets, especially during the recent world financial crisis. They ask, “Was Solar PV really a financial product rather than a renewable energy asset?”
Part IV includes a detailed explanation of EROI methodology and how in some cases monetary units are converted to energy units in order to estimate missing energy data. Prieto and Hall say: “Although some of the present experts in LCA’s (Lifecycle Cost Analyses) and EPBT’s (Energy Payback Times)….are sometimes critical of our ‘extended EROI’ analysis, which includes wider boundaries than usual and requires the use of many energy estimates based on monetary data we believe that one can derive a much more realistic EROI by including all energy even when using approximate monetary-derived energy numbers…”
Part V includes detail on 15 different energy loss factors and how the cumulative impact of these losses reduces the real yield to only about 65.5% (71% outside of Spain) of the peak power system installed capacity.
Part VI lists two-dozen different annual energy investment costs considered “using broad boundaries and with the assumption that wherever money is spent energy must flow.”
Part VII summarizes the results of this analysis along with sensitivity studies and conclusions. They also comment on administrative inefficiencies associated with Spain’s PV development programs.
There was no discussion about how the value of the energy returned will change as a function of the time of day. Prieto and Hall estimate that the EROI for solar PV in Spain is 2.45 thermal units of energy output for 1 thermal unit invested. However, this figure increases to 7.35 to 1 when taking into account energy quality or “transformity,” where, for example, it requires almost three thermal energy units of coal to produce one high value energy unit of electricity.
- See more at: http://www.todaysengineer.org/2013/Jun/book-review.asp#sthash.fiVxa9Ln.dpuf
I can see several areas where there could be problems with how the significance of this research differs from how it is reported in the OP.
"Broad boundaries" is a warning sign that the analysis may be improperly assigning costs. When you combine that with the fact that they are using money as a proxy for energy inputs there is potential for significant errors to enter into the analysis. The actual number is also not what the OP included in the snip. The relevant number when comparing solar electricity to fossil fuel primary energy is 7.35:1 about 3X the headline grabbing number that actually has no business being quoted at all.
I'm also troubled that this highly provocative claim is being published only in book form. It seems that the public benefit of publishing at least a summary of such supposedly groundbreaking research in a peer reviewed journal would have been part of the authors value calculus, but apparently it wasn't.
In short, I'm not going to go out and buy this book. It offers far too little data for public review and the nature of the "broad boundaries", monetized proxy for energy, and focus on an economically dysfunctional system of deployment seem tailor made to produce what might best be termed a 'singular' analysis of limited general value.
kristopher
(29,798 posts)“Distributed, point-of-use solar should prove to be the most disruptive renewable technology.”
Stephen Lacey
December 23, 2013
The financial services firm UBS is predicting a "difficult year ahead" for global investor-owned utilities.
In a recent research paper, UBS equities analysts outlined a combination of challenges for utilities: rising interest rates that will likely push investors toward higher-risk stocks and away from utility stocks, as well as the slowing demand for power worldwide.
The second issue is a structural one that will afflict utilities well beyond 2014. Through 2020, UBS analysts predict negative growth in Europe and Australia, zero growth in the U.S., and substantially slower growth in developing countries where new power supplies are being added most rapidly.
"We forecast year-on-year power demand growth to be negative in key developed markets in 2014 and beyond," wrote the analysts. "Regulatory and consumer focus on energy efficiency initiatives will further erode the demand pie. Simultaneously, we expect renewables -- especially solar and wind -- to continue to gain competitiveness as cost structures improve, and renewables supply to further pressurize the demand curve and profitability of conventional generators."
Aside from Indonesia, most key emerging markets will see considerable declines in electricity demand compared to traditional growth rates....
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/ubs-analysis-efficiency-and-solar-create-difficult-road-for-utilities