Solar EROI is not 3. To see that this cannot be the case:
* last year around 600GW of solar was deployed, or 0.6TW
* Imagine a 12.5% capacity factor (which is low)
* Imagine their capacity will degrade linearly to 80% over 20 years (I don't know if this is completely true but it's a rough approximation), thus their average output is 90%
* Imagine they will stop producing electricity after exactly 20 years (which is not true, they will continue to work unmaintained for decades)
They will thus produce total electricity of
.6 * .9 * .125 * 24 * 365 * 20
11826TWh
If their EROI was 3 it would mean it took 3942 TWh to produce them.
China used a total of 9852TWh of electricity in 2024.
I would strongly presume China did not use 40% of its electricity to produce solar panels.
* last year around 600GW of solar was deployed, or 0.6TW
* Imagine a 12.5% capacity factor (which is low)
* Imagine their capacity will degrade linearly to 80% over 20 years (I don't know if this is completely true but it's a rough approximation), thus their average output is 90%
* Imagine they will stop producing electricity after exactly 20 years (which is not true, they will continue to work unmaintained for decades)
They will thus produce total electricity of
.6 * .9 * .125 * 24 * 365 * 20
11826TWh
If their EROI was 3 it would mean it took 3942 TWh to produce them.
China used a total of 9852TWh of electricity in 2024.
I would strongly presume China did not use 40% of its electricity to produce solar panels.