Photovoltaics Guidebook for Decision-Makers

The book analyses all important aspects that have to be considered when evaluating photovoltaics as a potential option in the power-supply industry and industrial development. Since such an analysis is quite complex and requires know-how from several scientific disciplines, the book draws upon the expertise of about 40 invited experts. Consensus statements on some of the controversial items such as cost development or energy pay-back time are given. In addition, the book is completed by an evaluation of the technological status of photovoltaics. It enables the reader to form his or her own opinion, particularly on the genuine potential of photovoltaics in energy policy, the power-supply industry and industrial development.

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Mankind has to introduce sustainable development within the 21st century if basic life conditions are not to be put at risk. Above all, this demands eventually taking note of the limitations of non-renewable energy resources and of the limited capacity of local and global ecosystems to deal with disposal and emissions. For the resulting problems, we have to develop solutions. But sustainability is more than the protection of the natural environment. Justice, social stability, and adequate opportunities for education and employment for all people are of similar importance for our future. Both a transformation of energy policy in industrialized countries and a new policy for support of the less developed countries are necessary to prepare the way for a sustainable global community. Today we are far from such sustainable development. Global energy con sumption and the resulting emissions are still rising considerably and in creasingly endanger the ecological stability of the earth. Growing scarcity and rising prices of fossil fuels may lead to economic and political instability in many countries in the near future. In addition to this critical develop ment there exists an extreme divide in prosperity between industrialized and less developed countries, which is partly caused by an imbalance in access to sufficient and affordable energy, and which itself leads to conflicts and environmental damage.