What is the energy return from solar panels?

With large direct and indirect government subsidies, renewable energy industry, such as electricity generated by solar panels, have become very popular. There are many claims that energy output over energy input is seven, eight or higher. We want to make a more rigorous analysis of such claims.

Plants are biological solar panels. Leaves directly absorb solar energy and transform it into chemical energy. The rest of the plants utilize the obtained chemical energy to maintain the physiological functions, to grow and to reproduce. What is the overall return of the plant systems? The average return is slightly positive. In other words, energy output over energy input is slightly bigger than one. Even though the energy efficiency is so low, the whole wide world is full of green plants. Any system that has persistent positive return, no matter how small, will saturate the world.

If energy output over energy input is seven, eight or higher, as claimed by the proponents of the renewable energy industry, the whole wide world will be full of solar panels, even without government subsidy. Since solar energy is practically infinite, the energy problem would have been solved. No one would worry about Russian shut down of gas pipelines. No one would worry about energy shortage. But this is apparently not the case.

There are rigorous studies on the energy return from solar panels. These studies indicate the return on solar energy is less than one. This is why electricity production from solar energy has always been subsidized by the government. This is why the addition of solar power increases the cost of electricity for consumers.

However, mainstream media are full of wild claims about solar power. This shows that no one, at least no one in the mainstream media, mainstream environmental groups, mainstream academics and governments, is serious about environmental problems. Everyone is serious about making money. This indicates that accounting on energy input omits many parts. Fraud is so prevalent in today’s society.

By integrating biology and physics into economic analysis, many social problems become very clear to understand. That is why biophysical economics is aggressively resisted by the mainstream, who make great profit by generating and maintaining false claims, backed by the established and respected academic systems.