Output details
15 - General Engineering
Oxford Brookes University
Energy pay-back time: methodological caveats and future scenarios
This paper tackles some crucially important but often overlooked methodological aspects of the most widely-adopted energy performance indicator in the literature dealing with the environmental performance of photovoltaics, namely energy pay-back time (EPBT). Specifically, it analyses the effects of technological improvements and changes in the grid mix on EPBT. The relevance of this paper was acknowledged by field experts from 12 countries participating in the International Energy Agency Photovoltaics Power Systems Programme (PVPS), as evidenced by its being cited in Report IEA-PVPS T12-03:2011 “Methodology Guidelines on Life Cycle Assessment of Photovoltaic Electricity” .