Solar power

The EU is an uncontested world leader in solar power, but the fledgling technology relies heavily on public support schemes to bring down costs. Nevertheless, political leaders are now eyeing innovative large-scale projects to harness the sun's energy at competitive prices and meet Europe's electricity needs for years to come.

Milestones

• March 2007: EU summit agrees a binding target to source 20% of the EU's overall energy consumption from renewables by 2020.
• 19 Sept. 2007: Commission presents its 'third liberalisation package' (EurActiv 20/09/07).
• 22 Nov 2007: Commission tables a European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan) (EurActiv 23/11/07).
• 23 Jan. 2008: Commission presents a proposal for a directive to reach the targets set in March.
• 28 Feb 2008: EU ministers endorse SET-Plan.
• 13 Nov. 2008: Commission proposes a recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) (EurActiv 14/11/08).
• 11-12 Dec. 2008: EU leaders approve the new Renewables Directive (EurActiv 09/12/08).
• 23 March 2009: Parliament and Czech EU Presidency reach agreement on the third energy package (EurActiv 25/03/09).
• 23 Apr. 2009: Parliament adopts first-reading position on the EPBD (EurActiv 24/04/09).
• 25 June 2009: Council adopts internal energy market package.
• 7 Oct. 2009: Commission publishes SET-Plan financing communication (EurActiv 07/10/09).
• 30 June 2010: Deadline for EU states to present National Action Plans (NAPs) on renewables.
• By 2020: EU to source 20% of its total energy consumption from renewables.

Policy Summary

A race to reap the economic benefits of green innovation is beginning all over the world as concerns over limited oil and gas resources and future prices trigger a quest for alternative energy forms. Moreover, political commitment to a low-carbon future is becoming imperative as the global community hammers out a new international climate agreement.

In March 2007, EU heads of state and government adopted a binding target to source 20% of the EU's overall energy from renewables by 2020. In order to reach the target, in January 2008 the European Commission proposed a new directive promoting the use of energy from renewable sources, which was endorsed by the European summit in December that year (see EurActiv LinksDossier on 'EU renewable energy policy').

The legislation, replacing the previous 2006 directive, sets national targets for renewable energies but gives member states a free hand to decide which mix of renewables to pursue. In June 2009, the Commission issued a template for National Renewable Energy Action Plans (NREAPs), which member states have to produce when presenting their chosen course of action by the end of June 2010 (EurActiv 01/07/09).

But the uptake of solar will ultimately depend on the successful integration of these decentralised energies into the electricity grid, which will require significant infrastructure upgrades across Europe.

The new directive on the internal market in electricity (see EurActiv LinksDossier on 'EU electricity market liberalisation'), adopted as part of the EU's third internal energy market package in June 2009, aims to remove barriers to renewable electricity's access to the grid. Moreover, it obliges member states to consider the 20% goal when authorising the construction of new generating capacity.

Small-scale solar is also promoted in the recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. The Commission's November 2008 proposal seeks to oblige member states to ensure that decentralised energy supply systems based on renewable energy are considered in all new buildings, as well as those undergoing major renovations.

Issues

The sun provides the most abundant source of energy available. Experts estimate that harnessing all the solar energy that reaches Earth for just for an hour would be enough to satisfy global energy demand of an entire year.

Solar energy is utilised in three main ways:

• Photovoltaic (PV) systems convert the sun's energy directly into electricity using solar panels. The panels can power appliances and batteries or feed electrcity directly into the grid.
• Solar thermal is typically used in the residential sector to collect the sun's heat in containers filled with fluid or air to heat domestic water and houses, as well as to provide cooling.
• Concentrating solar power (CSP) is a means of producing either solar-thermal or photovoltaic electricity on a large scale. CSP usually uses giant mirrors to collect sunlight from a large area. The rays are then focused on a liquid - such as oil, to produce superheated steam to power a turbine - or targeted on photovoltaic surfaces.

Expensive technology?

Despite its huge promise solar energy currently provides less than 1% of energy sold globally, mainly due to its intermittent nature and low intensity.

The main reason for this has been difficulties exploiting the resource on a large scale at a competitive price. Solar electricity will become attractive when it falls below so-called 'grid parity', the point at which renewable energies become cost-competitive with conventional energy sources like fossil fuels.

But that is changing fast due to favourable regulatory regimes and rapid technological evolution in the industry. Costs have already come down drastically in the past decade, and the European PV industry now believes it will become competitive in some regions, notably southern Italy and Spain, by 2010.

In particular, the industry's initial reliance on crystalline silicon represented an obstacle to the mass-scale production of PV panels, even leading to raw material shortages. But so-called thin-film cells are now being developed that use other semiconductors, such as cadmium telluride (CdTe), copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) or other compounds that have made silicon shortages less of an issue.

These low-cost thin-film cells are leading to significant price drops in the PV industry, with American company First Solar set to overtake crystalline competitors to become the world's largest producer of photovoltaic cells in 2009, according to iSupply, a technology consultancy. By 2013, solar cells based on thin-film technology are expected to account for 34.5% of worldwide solar production, up from 14.2% in 2008, iSupply predicted.

In the future, decentralised electricity generation is expected to provide an additional boost to the sector as factories and private households turn to solar power for their electricity needs (see EurActiv LinksDossier on Microgeneration). Favourable regulatory regimes, including an obligation for power companies to buy the surplus electricity at a premium price (feed-in tariffs), are expected to favour this trend, with more solar panels finding their way onto the rooftops of factories and private households.

Industry eyes grid parity with fossil fuels

The market for solar electricity is growing rapidly as more countries introduce subsidies to bring down production costs and to boost research into more efficient techniques.

The industry believes that solar will be able to compete with fossil fuels to generate electricity in the coming years. When exactly this will happen will be driven by economies of scale, which accelerate the drop in prices. The price of crude oil will also be a major factor, as it is expected to become more expensive amid depleting resources and a carbon premium added to the price.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that solar power could provide as much as 11% of global electricity production in 2050. But this is conditional on many countries putting in place incentive schemes to support solar energy in the next five to ten years so that investment costs come down. The share would be roughly divided equally between photovoltaic and concentrating solar power.

In 2008, cumulative global photovoltaic capacity hit 15 GW, a growth of 5.6 GW on the previous year. Europe is a clear leader, as 65% of installed capacity lies within its borders.

The European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) projects that PV could rival other forms of electricity production in most of the EU market without the help of subsidies by 2020 if political support measures are taken in the next five to seven years to boost the volume of production and to benefit from economies of scale (EurActiv 23/06/09).

Meanhwile, solar-thermal is considered as the most mature solar technology and has provided households with affordable domestic water and space heating, as well as cooling. It accounts for the lion's share of the total solar market, but receives less attention and R&D funding than the more technical photovoltaic (PV) solar sector (EurActiv 24/08/09). The European Solar Thermal Industry Federation (ESTIF) reported a 60% growth in solar-thermal capacity in the EU in 2008.

Incentives fuel demand

Where solar installations have taken off, they tend to have been encouraged by generous state subsidies. Germany is the obvious point of reference as it became the world leader in photovoltaic capacity with the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG). Adopted in 2000 and revised in 2003, the law guarantees a minimum feed-in tariff for solar energy, ensuring that solar producers sell their electricity back to the grid at a price higher than the market.

Spain, another key global market for solar power, experienced an unprecedented growth in photovoltaic installations after introducing a very favourable feed-in tariff in 2007. But the government grossly underestimated the appetite for solar, leading to an unprecendented surge in installed solar capacity as the alternative energy became competitive with coal-fired power plants. 

By the end of 2007, the country had already far exceeded the target of 400 MW installed solar capacity that it had set for 2010, and the programme was suspended. The successor scheme of 2009 reduced tariffs considerably and introduced a cap of 500MW for capacity to be built.

The government's decision to cancel these subsidies led to a crash in the artificially-inflated market, as a surplus of panels drove prices down.

While the feed-in tariff in Spain has become a watchword for government renewables policy gone wrong, the German model and its incremental tariff reductions has been followed by France, Italy and the Czech Republic, all of which are keen to enter the solar race (EurActiv 24/07/09).

The idea is that feed-in tariffs will be reduced over time as production costs come down, eventually ceasing to exist altogether when the alternative energy source is able to compete with conventional sources of electricity. In Germany, for example, the cost of PV systems halved between 1997 and 2007.

Towards large-scale solar farms

While solar power lends itself well to residential applications, doubts have been raised as to whether it will ever be able to rival conventional energy sources and even wind power when it comes to utility-scale electricity production.

But this is starting to change as the technology progresses and governments around the world commit to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Large solar parks have already been built in Europe, the biggest being the 60MW Olmedilla photovoltaic park in Spain. However, these installations still need government support and the farms take up considerable space, inviting the wrath of environmentalists.

The EU's first commercial concentrating solar power (CSP) plant was inaugurated in Seville, Spain in 2007. It uses hundreds of mirrors, called heliostats, to focus sunrays on a receiver at the top of a tall tower, converting the beams into steam that drives a turbine. The plant is expected to supply enough power to serve the needs of the 600,000 citizens of Seville.

With several new large-scale projects in the pipeline, Spain has taken the lead on CSP but several projects are being planned and developed in the US too. A study published by Greenpeace International, the European Solar Thermal Electricity Association (ESTELA) and the International Energy Agency's SolarPACES in May 2009 estimated that CSP could meet up to 7% of the world's power needs by 2030.

The greatest potential for large-scale CSP lies in areas that get a lot of direct sunlight without much humidity, like deserts. Experts thus expect the most growth to take place in areas like the southwest United States and the Mediterranean countries of Europe and Africa. But there are problems there too as SCP requires large amounts of water to wash the mirrors and heat the water to turn the turbines. 

Saharan sun to power Europe

While solar power's potential far exceeds demand, importing solar electricity is becoming an interesting prospect for those countries where the resource is less abundant.

In Europe, Germany is leading a group of countries interested in bringing solar electricity from North Africa to meet their climate goals and diversify their energy mix. The most prominent example is the Desertec project, which has created a large political buzz in Germany and has the backing of European Commission President José Manuel Barroso and French President Nicolas Sarkozy (EurActiv 22/07/09).

The project aims to bring solar electricity generated in the Sahara to Europe via a high-voltage cable. The investors, including German energy giants RWE and E.ON, envisage that desert sunlight could eventually provide 15% of Europe's electricity needs.

Positions

The European Commission has embraced concentrating solar power by investing €5 million in Europe's first commercial power plant using the technology. "These new technologies give Europe a new option to combat climate change and increase energy security while strengthening the competitiveness of the European industrial sector and creating jobs and growth," said Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs.

The industry is upbeat about the prospect of solar energy rivalling fossil fuels in the coming decades. Industry representatives point out that both climate objectives and security of supply concerns speak for the clean alternative.

The European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) said that while the photovoltaic industry has not escaped the credit crunch, it is confident of continued growth. "A diversification of the market is taking place with countries adopting appropriate support policies. This is very good news for the PV industry and the environment," said EPIA President Winfried Hoffmann.

The industry is expecting favourable policy frameworks to boost demand for PV in countries like Germany, France, Italy and the US.

The European Solar Thermal Industry Federation (ESTIF) argued that solar thermal is already well-anchored in European markets and stimulates the contracting economy with impressive growth records. "With oil prices rising again, we believe that our sector will continue to grow steadily and be less affected by the current economic turmoil," said ESTIF President Olivier Drücke.

The association conceded that the take-up of solar thermal varies widely between countries, requiring action to convince installers and heating equipment traders in laggard countries that solar thermal is an attractive option. But it added: "Where solar thermal has reached a 'critical mass' we see that companies invest further in market development, which leads to more buildings being equipped with solar thermal collectors."

First Solar, a leading manufacturer of solar panels, believes that its cadmium telluride technology will make affordable solar electricity a reality. "Looking ahead to the next two to four years, First Solar will be in a position to produce power from the sun at costs competitive with conventional electricity generated from fossil fuels, paving the way for a large-scale transition to the cleaner energies we need to prevent irreversible damage to our planet," said First Solar CEO Mike Ahearn.

Applied Materials, a manufacturer of equipment for solar panels, urged EU policymakers to maintain the pressure to bring about a paradigm shift to renewable energies. "PV electricity has the potential to make a serious contribution to energy security and savings in Europe. We need to think of PV not simply as an added cost: it is an investment by society into a cleaner and greener environment," said Applied Materials CEO Mike Splinter.

Environmentalists have welcomed solar power as an important part of sustainable policies.

Greenpeace congratulated the EU for enabling its 20% target for renewables like solar to become a reality by setting binding national targets in the new Renewables Directive. "This agreement is a new dawn for a clean energy future that will benefit both the climate and the economy," said Frauke Thies, Greenpeace EU's renewables policy campaigner.