by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
A burst of new business at the end of 2009 put Germany close to adding a record of solar power to the grid, according to the head of Germany’s BSW solar industry association, Carsten Koernig. He estimates that in this year, 2009 alone, it will be very close to 3 Gigawatt.
While he is not sure what the final end-of-year number will be, he is sure of one fact. It cannot be over 3 Gigawatt, simply because there is no more capacity than that available in the whole of Germany.
German supplies of solar panels have completely sold out. Demand for parts, especially, and equipment such as inverters has outstripped supply. Germany’s very consumer-oriented feed-in tariff legislation makes it profitable for any homeowner to install panels on their roofs to supply the grid – and so homeowners do just that.
More than 40,000 people work in the photovoltaic industry. The 2008 record solar installed was 1.6 GW, bringing Germany’s total to 5.3 GW; one third of the world’s 15 GW of solar power. This year’s 3 Gigawatt could propel it to half the world’s solar power.
Part of the increase in end-of year sales was was due to pent-up demand as the financial crisis starts to ease in Germany; but part of it was last-minute homeowners and solar investors getting into the action before 2010, when the Feed-in Tariff rates will step down 10%.
Germany’s Renewable Energy Sources Act has required power companies to buy all the energy produced by anyone making renewable power, at a fixed above-market price for 20 years.
This payment started out in 2003 as 3 times what the electricity consumer would normally pay for electricity, then went down to 2 times the retail rate. Even after it goes down 10% next year this still amounts to well over what the electricity customer pays.
A surcharge of $1.67 on the monthly bill does not begin to cover that extra cost to the utility; but the nation shares in the Common Good of lowering carbon emissions.
If other countries, such as Britain, would follow similar acts as to solar and small wind much of the energy needs and demands of Europe could be made available by renewable sources. Britain, however, is going for nuclear stations – again large ones – an d also new coal fired power generating plants and is quite clear who pulled the lobbying strings here.
Nuclear, coal and oil simply have such a powerful lobby that renewables just, in Britain at least, cannot compete.
The fact that Britain refuses to even consider a feed-in tariff of at least the cost of what the consumer pays for electricity from the power companies, let alone with real incentives as in Germany or Denmark, makes the installation by homeowners of solar and small wind not an economic viability, unlike many of our European Union neighbors.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown talks a lot about going green and reduction of carbon emissions, etc., but when it comes to doing something about it that would benefit everyone government fails to deliver. Not that government has the slightest interest in doing what other countries have done; it would benefit the average person way too much.
© 2010
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