Energy Used To Create A Solar Panel

Recently a customer of ours raised the concern that he had heard.

Energy used to create a solar panel.

Solar panels will never generate enough power to offset the energy that was used to manufacture them in the first place. There s the direct use of energy to manufacture and transport the panels and their components. When this occurs a flow of electricity is generated and this electricity is harnessed and preserved as electrical energy. Solar panels work by allowing particles of light called photons to knock electrons from their atomic orbitals.

This flow travels in a circuit of wires that connect groups of solar panels called arrays. Amorphous silicon cells are non crystalline and instead are attached to a substrate like glass plastic or metal. This all happens as light hits a unit called a photovoltaic cell. They are lean and bendable unlike a standard panel.

Panels produced in china which relies heavily on coal for power have a larger carbon footprint than those produced in europe. Finally amorphous silicon cells create flexible solar panel materials that are often used in thin film solar panels. Not just the panels that make solar energy but the turbines and power stations and gas pipelines and railroads and railcars that make dirty energy they all take energy to make. That all these 50 ton coal trucks these railroads these coal hauling railroad cars these coal power stations these turbines that turn coal into electricity are all somehow built by fairies.

The silicon used to make the vast majority of today s photovoltaic cells is abundant but a silicon based solar cell requires a lot of energy input in its manufacturing process said. The solar panels feed into the inverter system. It takes energy to make all the things used to. Furthermore you have to think about the energy debt involved in acquiring raw materials and converting them into the parts used to make solar panels.

After reviewing several websites with very alarmist data i started looking around some more and found two great resources. Solar panel manufacturers need electricity and thermal energy and carbon emissions from their generation can vary widely with location. Our power system produces about 1 tonne of co 2 per mwh so 1 kwp of pv panel abates co 2 by 1 3 tonnes a year. The cost of 1 kwp of pv panels fully installed here is about 1000.

That energy that went into making the panels is called embodied energy. That can add up fast and a lot of solar plants are using fuels like coal to generate the energy they need for activities like melting silicon. For this reason thin film solar panels are true to their name.