Can Solar Cells Ever Recapture the Energy Invested in their Manufacture?
Richard Corkish Photovoltaics Special Research Centre University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052 Australia from Solar Progress (Australia and New Zealand Solar Energy Society) vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 16-17 (1997) http://www.ecotopia.com/apollo2/pvpayback.htm The 1983 book by Hu and White [1 ] summarises the results from a 1977 Solarex study [ 2] which found an energy payback time of 6.4 years for the manufacture of solar modules using silicon cells of 12.5 per cent efficiency…. The Energy Intensity of Photovoltaic Systems Andrew Blakers and Klaus Weber Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems Engineering Department, Australian National University October 2000 http://www.ecotopia.com/apollo2/pvepbtoz.htm Summary — The use of photovoltaic systems on a large scale in order to reduce fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions requires that the energy associated with the construction, operation and decommissioning of PV systems be small compared with energy production during the syste
