Italy – ahead of us in renewables?

This week I am away on my summer vacation in Italy, two weeks of sun and great food. We are in the hills just outside Sienna for the first week in a complex of nine units spread over a hillside with a shared pool – nothing unusual there, but what is interesting is the use of renewables.

Our villa is separate from the rest (which suites us well), but all of the units are linked up to a solar array on the hillside adjacent, I am assuming this feeds into the local network as well although I haven’t been able to confirm this. In addition to this all the villas have solar heating, there are large panels and tanks on each roof – not obvious unless you get at the right angle to see it.

Internally there is a water heater, but it appears to be a high efficiency one which is also linked up to the heating system – there is no air conditioning. So all in all the development appears to be fairly low impact in energy terms. Seeing this makes me realise just how far behind we are in the UK with getting renewables into our housing stock.

Yes we are moving forwards with wind farms and similar things, but our housing stock is old and inefficient, we need to address this sooner than later.

 

An interesting solar idea?

a concentrated solar power plant

With the recent ‘killing off’ by the Government of the feed in tariff in its current form, and on the back of that the demise of the UK’s small solar install business, it is always interesting to see ‘interesting ideas’ for the future development of solar energy.

The latest idea (well it’s not particularly new to be honest) is to make use of one of the worlds sunniest locations – North Africa;

It is a beguiling idea – harvest sunshine, and a little wind, from the empty deserts of North Africa and the Middle East, and use it to produce clean power for the region and for Europe.

It’s not an idea by a group without some clout either. Desertec, a group based in Germany have heavyweight commercial backers including Siemens and Deutsche Bank, and believe the scheme would also bring the regions around the Mediterranean closer together, while providing jobs and stability for the countries in the south – not sure about that one (possibly gives them more to fight over?)

It has chosen Morocco, which is embarking on its own ambitious solar programme, for its first “reference” project – a plant meant to show that its grand vision is feasible. They expect to see the first electricity flowing through undersea cables from Morocco to Spain as early as 2014.

Its goal is to use desert power to supply up to 100% of local needs and up to 15% of European demand by 2050. But is this realistic?

According to a study by the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), a state agency that provided data used by Desertec, less than 1% of suitable land in the North Africa and the Middle East would be needed to cover the current electricity consumption of the region, as well as Europe. And of course many countries with intense sunshine also have large tracts of uninhabited land – so the model could work.

But creating the power is the easy bit – it’s the network to distribute it that presents a series of formidable problems, from nomads stealing solar components to the technological and political challenges of transporting and delivering electricity over such a vast area.

Desertec points to a pair of cables already installed between Morocco and Spain – though for now these are carrying power from north to south. It says it will work closely with Medgrid, a French scheme to enable the construction of a Mediterranean transmission system.

The technology exists, and is getting cheaper, but it is untested on an intercontinental level.

The technology that will initially be used in Morocco is concentrated solar power (CSP), a process in which sunlight concentrated by mirrors heats water, which produces steam to drive a turbine. Crucially, the heat can be stored, allowing a secure supply even when the sun is not shining.

CSP has been getting cheaper, but not as quickly as photovoltaic (PV) power – the use of solar panels to convert sunshine directly into electricity. The DLR estimates that solar thermal power stations will become competitive with their fossil fuel equivalents between 2020 and 2030.

With the current instability in the Euro Zone it would take a lot of common thinking for the agreement to be reached to pull this type of development together – unlikely at this time. But it is a very clever and sensible way to progress renewable production – but it may need to wait for better financial times.

 

The death of small solar panels?

The current Government like us to think that they are ‘green’ – if so why have they cut the feed in tariffs?

Not anymore

Householders who are in the process of having solar panels put on their roof have less than six weeks to complete the job or face seeing the predicted income they generate slashed after the government said it was cutting feed-in tariffs by 50%. Despite pledging to be “the greenest government ever”, the coalition have announced that only installations completed by 12 December will get the full payments they were promised. Hundreds of householders who have signed contracts to have panels fitted have now pulled out and others are expected to follow.

More worrying, is a proposal to make future feed-in tariff (Fit) payments dependent on the home meeting tough energy performance standards. Around 85% of UK homes would need to spend around £5,600 to meet the requirements. Such a move, which is subject to the consultation exercise announced by ministers, would kill the solar industry.

Under the original scheme, householders had been promised the higher Fit payments provided they installed their panels before 1 April 2012. Since the scheme’s introduction in 2010, around 100,000 householders have taken advantage of the generous terms. Last week’s cuts have already led some in the renewables sector to predict the end of the solar industry, which employs 25,000 people.

At least two legal challenges have been threatened,including one by Friends of the Earth, if the government doesn’t back down on the 12 December deadline. A protest is also set to hit Westminster on 22 November, though with the industry now working round the clock to complete ongoing installations, no one can afford to take time off to attend, even though it looks as though many one-man companies that spent thousands of pounds training to become accredited installers won’t be around in 12 months’ time.

So what do the changes mean?

• The feed-in tariff payable on installations of up to 4kW used to attract a generation rate of 43.3p per kWh. This will be reduced to a proposed 21p for all installations with an eligibility date on or after 12 December – unless the government relents voluntarily, or is forced to by a legal challenge. This slashes their viability; the financial return on the investment falls from around 12% to 5%-7%.

• If you complete your installation between 12 December and 1 April, you will get the new Fit of 21p, but won’t have to conform to any energy efficiency measures.

• Perhaps the biggest change, and the one that has attracted the least publicity, is the plan to make the payment of Fits dependent on other energy efficiency measures. Ministers have indicated they want only homes that have an energy performance certificate rating of C or better, ruling out many homes, as it will be prohibitively expensive. Most pre-1919 homes require the installation of some or all of the following measures: loft insulation, cavity wall insulation, heating controls, hot water cylinder insulation, replacement boiler and solid wall insulation – at a typical cost of £5,600.

• The proposals are also expected to put an end to free solar installations (often called “rent-a-roof” schemes) through a new multi-installation rate – where an individual or company receives Fits from more than one installation. They will get just 16.8p per kWh for systems up to 4kW, a rate which makes the business no longer worth pursuing.