Abstract
Global installed capacity of renewable energy technologies is growing rapidly. The ability of renewable technologies to enable a rapid transition to a low carbon energy system is highly dependent on the energy that must be “consumed” during their life-cycle. This paper presents the results of meta-analyses of life-cycle assessments (LCA) of energy costs of three renewable technologies: solar photovoltaic (PV), concentrating solar power (CSP), and wind. The paper presents these findings as energetic analogies with financial cost parameters for assessing energy technologies: overnight capital cost, operating costs and levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). The findings suggest that wind energy has the lowest energy costs, followed by CSP and then PV.
Highlights
Technology assessment of energy production technologies is often computed as financial cost.The US Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory have been aggregating data on cost estimates for electricity generation in an online application, the TransparentCost Database [1]
In the field of net energy analysis, the energy return on investment (EROI) is often computed, which measures the ratio of the energy in a given amount of the extracted and delivered fuel to the total primary energy used in the supply chain” [4]
Within the field of life cycle assessment (LCA) a different set of metrics are reported, including the cumulative energy demand (CED), defined as the amount of primary energy consumed during the life-cycle of a product or a service [6], and the energy or greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity, defined as the ratio of the primary energy consumed, or CO2 emitted for the construction, operation, and decommissioning, per unit of output of electrical energy over the lifetime of the device [7]
Summary
Life-cycle “cost” metrics are developed in other fields for energy generation technologies. In the field of net energy analysis, the energy return on investment (EROI) is often computed, which measures the ratio of the energy in a given amount of the extracted and delivered fuel to the total primary energy used in the supply chain (i.e., the energy that is directly and indirectly required to extract, refine and deliver the fuel)” [4]. Within the field of life cycle assessment (LCA) a different set of metrics are reported, including the cumulative energy demand (CED), defined as the amount of primary energy consumed during the life-cycle of a product or a service [6], and the energy or greenhouse gas (GHG) intensity, defined as the ratio of the primary energy consumed, or CO2 emitted for the construction, operation, and decommissioning, per unit of output of electrical energy over the lifetime of the device [7]
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