If the EROI is indeed 6.5 then yes you are correct.
But last time I looked at EROI they always cherry picked the best results. (Bright sun, perfect angle, clean new panels, etc.) They also usually ignored installation costs (inverter, wires, framework). Additionally as the cells age they produce less energy.
In more typical installations the number I remember was 20 years after including everything. Although it you told me it was really 10 years I wouldn't argue much.
Under 5 years seems unlikely to me. I'll tell you how I know:
Market forces. With a ROI (not EROI - but obviously they are strongly related) of under 5 years you will have people installing the panels as an investment, with no subsidies needed. Yet you don't see that happening, and I suspect it's because the ROI is worse than 5 years.
This is a bit of a backward argument of course, but the fact that you need subsidies to get people to install solar panels tell me the ROI is not good enough.
I would support subsidies only for one purpose: To initially stimulate the market, in order that scale would reduce prices long term. But subsidies long term are wrong.
I agree with you that if you only get an EROI of 6.5, that's in itself just barely worth it. But to be fair, things are changing really fast. The United States has just added import taxes on Chinese solar panels, to prop up the US solar industry, from 30 to 250 percent depending on the manufacturer. This seems to me a really obvious sign that solar cells are getting a _lot_ cheaper. This might or might not change the energy question, but the economic viability of solar cells is getting better. Can't find the source on this, but I read somewhere that the newest Chinese solar panels are clearly economically viable even without subsidies.
If the EROI is indeed 6.5 then yes you are correct.
But last time I looked at EROI they always cherry picked the best results. (Bright sun, perfect angle, clean new panels, etc.) They also usually ignored installation costs (inverter, wires, framework). Additionally as the cells age they produce less energy.
In more typical installations the number I remember was 20 years after including everything. Although it you told me it was really 10 years I wouldn't argue much.
Under 5 years seems unlikely to me. I'll tell you how I know:
Market forces. With a ROI (not EROI - but obviously they are strongly related) of under 5 years you will have people installing the panels as an investment, with no subsidies needed. Yet you don't see that happening, and I suspect it's because the ROI is worse than 5 years.
This is a bit of a backward argument of course, but the fact that you need subsidies to get people to install solar panels tell me the ROI is not good enough.
I would support subsidies only for one purpose: To initially stimulate the market, in order that scale would reduce prices long term. But subsidies long term are wrong.