IN PRAISE OF SOLAR
Roofing materials that do nothing but keep the rain out are a shameful waste of space.
OVER THE LAST forty years the world of energy has abounded with predictions,
from dire forecasts of the imminent exhaustion of world oil supplies,
to the rather optimistic "Nuclear power will be too cheap to meter."
But only the truly visionary could have forseen Terminator actor Arnold
Schwarzenegger standing before the people of California in 2005, as their
governor, launching the world's largest solar roof programme!
Solar heat and power technologies have been making impressive progress
in the US over the last decade, mainly through government support programmes
like Schwarzenegger's Million Solar Roofs Initiative. A precursor to the
Californian programme came in 1997 when President Clinton launched a national
Solar Roof Initiative. Without any formal budget it still achieved 229,000
installations by the end of 2003. Earlier still, in 1994, Japan launched
a 70,000-roof programme and reached 144,000 residential systems in 2002.
Germany upgraded its 1,000-roof programme to 100,000 roofs in late 1998.
The programme was such a success that it met its targets early in 2003.
Meanwhile, in the UK the outlook doesn't seem quite so bright. After
managing just 600 installations in the first two years the Department
of Trade and Industry is to end the Major Photovoltaics Demonstration
Programme in March 2006. The programme was due to run until 2012, by which
time 70,000 small-scale systems were due to be installed. According to
Friends of the Earth UK, on twelve separate occasions since 1999 the German
solar roof programme has delivered the equivalent of the UK's initial
three-year target in just one month.
The UK programme, along with its solar thermal equivalent, Clear Skies,
will be replaced with a non-technology-specific programme and it is as
yet unclear how solar will fare against the other technologies that are
closer to being commercially competitive.
'Sustained nurture' has been the nascent renewable industry's wish for
government policy for some time now, rather than stop-start grant programmes
which make investment in industrial capacity so unattractive. In Germany
sustained nurture has been enshrined in the Renewable Energy Feed Law,
whereby support for photovoltaic systems is fixed per solar kWh produced
into the foreseeable future and backed by low-interest loans. The price
is set to reduce each year by five per cent, to mirror the reduction in
capital costs brought on by the scaling-up of production that the programme
facilitates.
In 1999 Greenpeace commissioned business advisers KPMG to examine the
economics of photovoltaics (PV). The report Solar Energy: From Perennial
Promise to Competitive Alternative concluded that solar PV could be competitive
with conventional fossil-fuel power generation if production were scaled
up to 500MW peak per year (around 250,000 household-sized systems per
year). They estimated that to build a factory of this kind would cost
US$660 million. This sounds like a lot of money, but the authors pointed
out that the investment equates to just one half of one per cent of current
expenditure on oil and gas exploration annually.
Six years later costs have fallen significantly but we are still a long
way from the "competitive alternative" scenario that KPMG envisaged.
Without grant support, payback periods for solar at current prices are
around 100 years for PV in the UK's climate. Clearly more nurturing is
required to change the fact that sadly, most people with the money to
spare choose a new kitchen rather than a solar roof.
THE SITUATION WITH solar thermal is somewhat different. This is already
a mature technology and the potential to reduce cost through scaling up
production is not as great. There are estimated to be around 45,000 systems
already installed in the UK. Its financial viability is still not exactly
a heart-stopping money-earner though, either: the simple payback is around
forty years. But with gas prices rising substantially after years of decline,
and a range of local support programmes designed to make the technology
accessible to the public, prospects for solar water heating are now looking
a little brighter.
The possibility of a Renewable Heat Obligation, modelled on its electrical
cousin, looks like a real possibility. This would put a requirement on
suppliers of heating fuel to source a proportion of their heat from renewable
sources - with solar thermal being one of the three permitted technologies.
An EU Renewable Heat and Cooling Directive is also being proposed.
Solar enthusiasts in the UK can take comfort from the fact that the uptake
of solar in Europe bears almost no relation to climate. The largest markets
for solar water heating in Europe are Germany, then Austria and Greece,
which together enjoy more than eighty per cent of Europe's installed capacity.
Greece clearly has a climatic advantage, but why has Austria achieved
almost two million square metres of solar collectors by 2004 - more than
twice as much as sunnier Spain, Portugal and Italy combined? Denmark has
managed 45m2 per 1,000 inhabitants while the UK has managed just 5m2.
Clearly there are other factors at work. Research has shown that public
awareness of environmental issues, government intervention through regulation
and financial support, and the quality of the products and services offered
by the industry are as important as climate in the uptake of solar.
HOWEVER, THE UK hasn't been completely backward in the area of solar
power. Few people realise that there is a renewable revolution beginning
in our town halls. Frustrated by central government inaction, local authorities
have taken it upon themselves to introduce tough new planning requirements
for new developments. The London Borough of Merton was the first, and
it managed to overturn developers' challenges and steer past a nervous
government. Merton's planning system now requires any new large-scale
commercial development to source ten per cent of its energy needs from
on-site renewable energy. Five London Boroughs and the Greater London
Authority have since followed suit, introducing their own ten per cent
requirements, with some extending this to residential as well as commercial
developments. With solar technologies as the obvious choice to integrate
into a new building, and huge swathes of new housing planned for London,
this could be the kick-start that the UK solar industry needs.
The prospect of a technology costing in the region of £500 a square
metre replacing the humble concrete tile as the roofing material of choice
in ten years may seem remote today. But as the price continues to tumble,
and with the evidence that the point of irreversible accelerated climate
change is getting closer, how long will it be before we view using roofing
materials that do nothing except keep the rain out as a shameful waste
of space?
