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Energy Externalities Day 7: Solar Photovoltaics

March 29, 2018

Energy Externalities Day 7: Solar Photovoltaics

Solar PV is a multidimensional energy system difficult to evaluate on a global basis. Maximum concentration required from The Game players! First, there is solar thermal hot water, solar thermal power generation (also known as CSP) and solar PV. Today’s game is exclusively on the latter. And in solar PV there are two main families of panels: 1) thin film and 2) polycrystalline. Today’s game is exclusively on the latter. Add to that the fact that solar PV works much better at low latitude than high, not only from the resource perspective but also from the seasonal storage one. In short, solar PV makes much better sense in Arizona and Mexico than it does in Aberdeen. Politicians tend to see devices that generate free, clean electricity, while I tend to see expensive devices made from coal in China that produce electricity some of the time.

[Inset image: abject cognitive dissonance seems to be a feature of renewable energy enthusiasts and politicians who see environmental advantage in plastering the countryside with low power density renewable energy devices.]

The Externalities of Energy Production Systems (Day 1 Coal)
Energy Externalities Day 2: Gas-fired-CCGT
Energy Externalities Day 3: Biomass-Fired-Electricity
Energy Externalities Day 4: Nuclear Power
Energy Externalities Day 5: Wind Power
Energy Externalities Day 6: Hydroelectric Power

I am proposing to use 12 metrics to measure costs and benefits:

  • Fatalities / year / unit of energy produced
  • Chronic illness years / year / unit of energy produced
  • Environmental costs not covered directly by the system operators
  • Foot print of energy system per unit of energy produced
  • Energy system costs where energy source transfers costs to the transmission system
  • Energy system benefits where energy source provides a service to the transmission system
  • Environmental benefits derived from energy system operation
  • Taxes raised / year / for total energy produced
  • Subsidies paid / year / for total energy produced
  • Tax free cost of energy
  • EroEI
  • Resource availability

For the following 12 electricity generating systems

  • Coal-fired (Monday 19 March)
  • Gas-fired (Tuesday 20 March)
  • Biomass-fired
  • Diesel
  • Nuclear
  • Hydro electric
  • Wind
  • Solar PV
  • Solar thermal
  • Wave
  • Tidal
    • barrage
    • lagoon
    • stream
  • Geothermal

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

EROEI Calculations for Solar PV Are Misleading

December 21, 2016

EROEI Calculations for Solar PV Are Misleading

The Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI) concept is very frequently used in energy studies. In fact, many readers seem to think, “Of course, EROEI is what we should be looking at when comparing different types of energy. What else is important?” Unfortunately, the closer to the discussions of researchers a person gets, the more problems a person discovers. People who work with EROEI regularly say, “EROEI is a tool, but it is a blunt tool. An EROEI of 100 is good compared to an EROEI of 10. For small differences, it is not so clear.”

Because of the idiosyncrasies of how EROEI works, different researchers using EROEI analyses come to very different conclusions. This issue has recently come up in two different solar PV analyses. One author used EROEI analysis to justify scaling up of solar PV. Another author published an article in Nature Communications that claims, “A break-even between the cumulative disadvantages and benefits of photovoltaics, for both energy use and greenhouse gas emissions, occurs between 1997 and 2018, depending on photovoltaic performance and model uncertainties.”

Other EROEI researchers with whom I correspond don’t agree with these conclusions. They recognize that in complex situations, EROEI analyses cannot cover everything. Somehow, the user needs to be informed enough to realize that these omissions result in biases. Researchers need to work around these biases when coming to conclusions. They themselves do it (or try to); why can’t everyone else?

The underlying problem with EROEI calculations is that EROEI is based on a very simple model. The model works passably well in simple situations, but it was not designed to handle the complexities of intermittent renewables, such as wind and solar PV. Indirect costs, and costs that are hard to measure, tend to get left out.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Don’t be Fossil Fooled – It’s time to say goodbye.

July 15, 2015

Don’t be Fossil Fooled – It’s time to say goodbye.

It’s time to make the call – fossil fuels are finished. The rest is detail.

The detail is interesting and important, as I expand on below. But unless we recognise the central proposition: that the fossil fuel age is coming to an end, and within 15 to 30 years – not 50 to 100 – we risk making serious and damaging mistakes in climate and economic policy, in investment strategy and in geopolitics and defence.

I’ve written previously about 2015 being the year the “Dam of Denial” breaks,referring to the end of denial that climate change requires urgent, transformational economic change. While related, this is different. It is now becoming clear we’ve reached a tipping point where fossil fuels will enter terminal decline, independently of climate policy action.

Given climate policy action is also now accelerating, fossil fuels are double dead. To paraphrase Douglas Adams, “So long and thanks for all the energy”.

I understand this is a very big call, especially in regards to timing. There are many drivers that lead me to this conclusion but it’s their integrated impact that makes me so confident.

Thinking of energy like you think about an iPhone

The first and most important one is the argument I first made early in 2014 in a paper with Giles Parkinson from RenewEconomy.com.au. For over a hundred years, energy markets have been defined by physical resources, supplied in large volumes by large, slow moving companies developing long life assets in the context of slow moving shifts in markets.

The new emerging energy system of renewables and storage is a “technology” business, more akin to information and communications technology, where prices keep falling, quality keeps rising, change is rapid and market disruption is normal and constant. There is a familiar process that unfolds in markets with technology driven disruptions. I expand on that here in a 2012 piece I wrote in a contribution to Jorgen Randers book “2052 – A Global Forecast” (arguing the inevitability of the point we have now arrived at).

 

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How Sustainable is Stored Sunlight?

May 14, 2015

How Sustainable is Stored Sunlight?

Tesla_power_wall

One of the constraints of solar power is that it is not always available: it is dependent on daylight hours and clear skies. In order to fill these gaps, a storage solution or a backup infrastructure of fossil fuel power plants is required — a factor that is often ignored when scientists investigate the sustainability of PV systems.

Whether or not to include storage is no longer just an academic question. Driven by better battery technology and the disincentivization of grid-connected solar panels, off-grid solar is about to make a comeback. How sustainable is a solar PV system if energy storage is taken into account?

In the previous article, we have seen that many life cycle analyses (LCAs) of solar PV systems have a positive bias. Most LCAs base their studies on the manufacturing of solar cells in Europe or the USA. However, most panels are now produced in China, where the electric grid is about twice as carbon-intensive and about 50% less energy efficient. [1] Likewise, most LCAs investigate solar PV systems in regions with a solar insolation typical of the Mediterranean region, while the majority of solar panels have been installed in places with only half as much sunshine.

As a consequence, the embodied greenhouse gas emissions of a kWh of electricity generated by solar PV is two to four times higher than most LCAs indicate. Instead of the oft-cited 30-50 grams of CO2-equivalents per kilowatt-hour of generated electricity (gCO2e/kWh), we calculated that the typical solar PV system installed between 2008 and 2014 produces close to 120 gCO2e/kWh. This makes solar PV only four times less carbon-intensive than conventional grid electricity in most western countries.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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