How much energy is required to produce, transport and install solar panels?
I’m wondering if you total up all the electricity a plant making solar panels uses in a year, the energy the workers take to travel to their jobs each day, the energy used to transport the finished product to consumers and finally the energy used to install them and then compare it to the energy all of these panels will produce during their 20 year life will anything be gained?
Or would be have been ahead to just not bother making the panels in the first place.
Not a lot. About the same as for a half-dozen personal computers.the base technology is pretty much the same.
This is one example of the ignorance of the right wing (not you personally–you’ve just been misled). They don’t even know what basic technology is involved. The energy requirements for manufacturing and installing solar energy systems is LESS than for other energy production systems. Not Look, modern solar energy panels are essentially y printed circuits, similar to those used in computers. That’s a low-energy manufacturing process..
I dont know about right now, but it use to be that solar power took so much power and time to create the panels that it really isnt energy efficient for like hundreds of years for each panel. Maybe they have a new way of producing the panels now though. Yes, it is a delima, but, it will create more jobs, at this point that all that matters……………I hope. Its just good that alternative fuel and power sources are becoming more of a focus.
Did you catch the show about the uses of corn on the discovery channel recently if not, watch for it, its almost to the pont if we cant grow corn, we cant function. It was mind blowing.
There have been studies done on this for a variety of power sources.
Here’s a solar photovoltaic one from the Brookhaven National Laboratory:
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es071763q
CO2 emissions is a good way of comparing energy used in production – because solar panels etc are fabricated with most of their energy coming from the grid – which means mostly fossil fueled. CO2 is a ‘proxy’ for the amount of energy used in making them.
Solar PV technologies have life cycle emissions averaging 20-60g CO2/kWh produced. This compares with 400-500g for gas and 700-900g for coal. It shows that over their lifespan they generate significantly more electricity than the energy required to produce them.
Solar is worse than wind and small hydro schemes iirc, but it’s still far cleaner than fossil fuels and a net energy producer.
The document linked below, from the National Renewable Energy Lab (considered an authoritative source), suggests that within at most, 4 years, a solar panel will pay back the energy required to manufacture and transport it. That includes refining the aluminum for the frame, freight to ship the thing over to the site, etc.
Recent improvements make the payback time a little better, as every bit of energy saved in manufacturing and distribution is an advantage to the manufacturer.