Spain’s Photovoltaic Revolution: The Energy Return on Investment PDF
Preview Spain’s Photovoltaic Revolution: The Energy Return on Investment
S pringerBriefs in Energy Energy Analysis Series Editor: Charles A.S. Hall For further volumes: h ttp://www.springer.com/series/10041 Spain’s Photovoltaic Revolution The Energy Return on Investment by Pedro A. Prieto and Charles A.S. Hall with the assistance of Rigoberto Melgar Pedro A. Prieto Charles A.S. Hall Vice President of the Asociación para el Faculty of Environmental and Forest Estudio de los Recursos Energéticos Biology and Graduate Program in (AEREN) Environmental Science Member of the Board of ASPO College of Environmental Science and International Forestry Pozuelo de Alarcón State University of New York 28223 Madrid, Spain Syracuse, NY 13210, USA ISSN 2191-5520 ISSN 2191-5539 (electronic) ISBN 978-1-4419-9436-3 ISBN 978-1-4419-9437-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-9437-0 Springer New York Heidelberg Dordrecht London Library of Congress Control Number: 2012951424 © Pedro A. Prieto and Charles A.S. Hall 2013 This work is subject to copyright. 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Printed on acid-free paper Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com) P reface W e all know that the fossil fuels that sustain modern human civilization are fi n ite and polluting. We also know that the amount of sunshine that enters the Earth surface is immense, many orders of magnitude greater than human needs. These two facts lead to one obvious conclusion: we need to replace fossil fuels with solar energy. There are many solar advocates who see the issue as essentially a “no brainer.” B ut others understand that solar is far from cheap in monetary terms. The fi r st author, with a great deal of experience in the solar industry, understands this especially well, as he had to sign every purchase order as chief engineer for a series of major solar installations in Spain. In this book, we fi n d that the best way to understand the fossil fuel subsidies that underlie whatever we do in our economy is to “follow the money.” Anywhere in society that money is spent, energy (and mostly this means fossil fuels today) must be used to generate the goods and services that the money represents. In general, we consider money to be a “lien on energy” where general economic agree- ments allow the bearer of money to purchase energy-requiring goods and services. Manufacturers will purchase and use energy to put goods and services on the shelf in anticipation of sales. T ake out the money, and an economy is still possible through barter. Take out the energy, and the economy stops, as the Cubans found in 1988 when the Russians cut off their oil and food disappeared from the stores within a week. I n this book, we attempt to evaluate all (or as many inputs as is possible) of the energy that goes into providing electricity for real-life photovoltaic systems in Spain, the country with the second largest installations of solar power as of 2008. Many of the inputs that we include are normally skipped in typical life cycle analy- ses (LCE) and energy payback time (EPBT) studies that have been made of solar PV power. While we believe this larger view of inputs to make PV is essential for a comprehensive energy analysis, we recognize that some of our inputs will be con- troversial. We leave it to the reader and to future analysts to make their own deci- sions about inclusivity and methods in general for a comprehensive analysis of EROI. Whatever your opinion, this study should really open your eyes to the degree to which fossil fuels underlie everything we do in our technological society. A series of excellent photographs that help one to get a feel for photovoltaic power in Spain can be found at h ttp://www.fl ickr.com/photos/ A cknowledgments W e thank Carlos de Castro, professor of Applied Physics and Energy Group, and System Dynamics Modeling Energy Group, University of Valladolid, for reviewing the manuscript and other valuable input. A ntonio Ruiz de Elvira, Professor of Applied Physics, University of Alcala de Henares, For peer reviewing and encouraging this venture and pioneering the EROI works in Spain. J im MacInnes provided an indepth revision and many helpful comments on transformity. W e also thank Ajay Gupta for reading and commenting on the manuscript. vii A bout the Authors P edro A. Prieto is a telecom technical engineer. He has worked in the telecom s ector for 30 years as Development Engineer and Professor in the ITT R&D Labs, Commercial Director, Export Director, and Vice President of the radio communication division in Alcatel. Pedro is Vice President of a not-for-profi t organization, the Asociación para el Estudio de los Recursos Energéticos (AEREN), whose media is the web page Crisis Energética (w ww.crisisenergetica.org) , which is working as an open space for debate and communications on energy issues and their role in demography, devel- opment, economy, and ecology and is a reference in the Spanish speaking world for ASPO (the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, an association of scien- tists of all over the world, devoted to the analysis and study of the global peak oil and gas and its consequences for mankind). AEREN represents ASPO in Spain. He attends many conferences on peak oil and renewable energies. P edro is a board member at ASPO International ( w ww.peakoil.net) and is also member of the not-for-profi t organization Científi c os por el Medio Ambiente (CiMA) (w ww.cima.es.org) . S ince 2006, Pedro A. Prieto has led several solar photovoltaic projects in Spain, a leading world country in solar PV penetration, covering today about 3 % of the total national electric demand, with about 4,246 MW installed base, of which he partially owns and completely manages a 1 MW modern feed-in plant in operation. He has assessed public and private entities in several projects for more than 30 MW, and has supervised, offered, and dimensioned many other similar solar photovoltaic projects. I n 2009, he was engaged as director of development for alternative energies at a listed Spanish Corporation devoted to the fi e lds of telecommunications, technology, infrastructures, and renewable energies. A t present, Pedro works as a truly independent consultant in solar PV projects. He would like to dedicate this book to his granddaughters, Sophie and Chloe, whose smiles greatly enlighten the challenging times to come. ix x About the Authors C harles A.S. Hall is professor of environmental science at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse. He received his Ph.D from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill under Dr. H.T. Odum. His fi elds of interest are systems ecology, energy, and biophysical economics. Dr. Hall is author, coauthor, or editor of 10 books and 270 scholarly articles that have appeared in S cience, Nature, Bioscience, American Scientist, and other scientifi c journals. He is best known for his development of the concept of EROI, or energy return on invest- ment, which is an examination of how organisms, including humans, invest energy into obtaining additional energy to improve biotic or social fi t ness. He has applied these approaches to carbon balance, fi s h migrations, tropical land use change, and the extraction of petroleum and other fuels in both natural and human-dominated ecosys- tems. Presently, he is developing a new fi eld, biophysical economics, as a supplement or alternative to conventional neoclassical economics while applying systems and EROI thinking to a broad series of resource and economic issues.
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