TY - JOUR

T1 - Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) for photovoltaic solar systems in regions of moderate insolation

T2 - a comprehensive response

AU - Raugei, Marco

AU - Sgouridis, Sgouris

AU - Murphy, David

AU - Fthenakis, Vasilis

AU - Frischknecht, Rolf

AU - Breyer, Christian

AU - Bardi, Ugo

AU - Barnhart, Charles

AU - Buckley, Alastair

AU - Carbajales-Dale, Michael

AU - Csala, Denes

AU - de Wild-Scholten, Mariska

AU - Heath, Garvin

AU - Jæger-Waldau, Arnulf

AU - Jones, Christopher

AU - Keller, Arthur

AU - Leccisi, Enrica

AU - Mancarella, Pierluigi

AU - Pearsall, Nicola

AU - Siegel, Adam

AU - Sinke, Wim

AU - Stolz, Philippe

PY - 2017/3

Y1 - 2017/3

N2 - 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. Such claim, if accurate, would call into question many energy investment decisions. In the same paper, a comparison is also drawn between PV and nuclear electricity. We have carefully analysed this paper, and found methodological inconsistencies and calculation errors that, in combination, render its conclusions not scientifically sound. Ferroni and Hopkirk adopt ‘extended’ boundaries for their analysis of PV without acknowledging that such choice of boundaries makes their results incompatible with those for all other technologies that have been analysed using more conventional boundaries, including nuclear energy with which the authors engage in multiple inconsistent comparisons. In addition, they use out-dated information, make invalid assumptions on PV specifications and other key parameters, and conduct calculation errors, including double counting. We herein provide revised EROI calculations for PV electricity in Switzerland, adopting both conventional and ‘extended’ system boundaries, to contrast with their results, which points to an order-of-magnitude underestimate of the EROI of PV in Switzerland by Ferroni and Hopkirk.

AB - 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. Such claim, if accurate, would call into question many energy investment decisions. In the same paper, a comparison is also drawn between PV and nuclear electricity. We have carefully analysed this paper, and found methodological inconsistencies and calculation errors that, in combination, render its conclusions not scientifically sound. Ferroni and Hopkirk adopt ‘extended’ boundaries for their analysis of PV without acknowledging that such choice of boundaries makes their results incompatible with those for all other technologies that have been analysed using more conventional boundaries, including nuclear energy with which the authors engage in multiple inconsistent comparisons. In addition, they use out-dated information, make invalid assumptions on PV specifications and other key parameters, and conduct calculation errors, including double counting. We herein provide revised EROI calculations for PV electricity in Switzerland, adopting both conventional and ‘extended’ system boundaries, to contrast with their results, which points to an order-of-magnitude underestimate of the EROI of PV in Switzerland by Ferroni and Hopkirk.

KW - EROI

KW - ERoEI

KW - Photovoltaic energy

KW - Insolation levels

KW - Switzerland

KW - Germany

KW - Incentive system

KW - Adjustment factor

U2 - 10.1016/j.enpol.2016.12.042

DO - 10.1016/j.enpol.2016.12.042

M3 - Journal article

VL - 102

SP - 377

EP - 384

JO - Energy Policy

JF - Energy Policy

SN - 0301-4215

ER -