| John Major in a recent letter to Greenpeace confirmed that “the threat of climate change is one of the greatest challenges that we face”.(1) Solar Electric (solar photovoltaics) is a pollution-free technology that converts sunlight directly into electricity. It is one of the critical technologies that the Government should be developing to reduce our emissions of carbon dioxide in order to protect the climate from catastrophic changes. The current costs of solar electric means that if it is installed on a home in the UK, it will generate electricity at about 3-4 times the present cost of purchasing conventional electricity.(2) The costs of solar electric panels have dropped five fold over the last fifteen years and are predicted to drop a further three fold by the year 2000.(3) These further cost reductions are primarily dependent upon increasing manufacturing which is dependent upon the level of growth of the global market. In order to increase manufacturing, and reduce costs further, a number of countries (Japan, USA, Netherlands, Germany) have embarked upon, or are planning, large-scale development programmes which will result in tens of thousands of homes being powered by solar electric panels by the beginning of the new millennium. By contrast the UK Government is suppressing the growth of solar power in Britain today. Only two homes currently use solar electric panels in Britain. The Government has excluded Solar Electric from the Non Fossil Fuel Obligation (NFFO), the only Government market mechanism available to renewables in the UK. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is currently allocating £0.9 million a year to the expansion of solar electric technology in the UK. This comes from its Research and Development budget and the Foresight Challenge programme, which will part-fund a small solar schools project over the next three years.(4) The DTI spends more on “publicity and promotion” for the oil industry and fifteen times more on nuclear fusion research than it does expanding the use of solar electric in the UK.(5) In the last two years the Government has spent some £90 million on the refurbishment of the DTI”s Headquarters and on the construction of Eland House, the new Headquarters of the Department of the Environment . Eland House, which cost £30 million, was built as a “state of the art” green building and a show case for the British construction industry. Eland House cannot perform this function as it fails to generate any of its own clean electricity and fails to promote British solar companies. The Government has failed to incorporate one solar electric panel into any of its building stock despite solar’s applicability and Britain having two leading solar companies with an annual turnover of some £40 million. In 1993, the last year for which full figures are available, the Department of the Environment spend £2.4 billion on capital works on the Government estate, approximately a third of the national commercial buildings market. None of this money has been spent integrating solar electric into the Government’s building stock. The potential for Solar electric in the UK is vast. Studies by the DTI have shown that a wholesale application of the technology could generate around two-thirds of the nation’s electricity requirements.(6) Indeed, the DTI’s own research concluded that “It has been shown in this study that photovoltaics deployed as cladding on the UK building stock could make a substantial contribution to the electricity supply capacity of this country.”(7) Furthermore another report written for the Government warned of the risk of not taking action on developing a market for solar in the UK. “The UK PV industry is at risk of losing out to European competitors in the grid-connected system market at home and abroad. At least a modest, coherent national programme is required to give the industry the credibility of a national interest.”(8) Despite numerous reports outlining the enormous potential of the technology and recommendations urging the Government to act, the Government still refuses to undertake any significant expansion in the use of solar electric in Britain. It is failing to deliver the technology to the British people and failing to even install the technology on its own building stock.
Solar Electric is the only renewable technology that can be deployed wholesale in the urban environment on our homes and offices. The solar electric systems are grid-connected. This allows the solar system to export clean electricity onto the local grid as well as using it directly in the building. About forty solar panels are required to produce the yearly electricity requirements of an average sized home.
Solar Electric is already a growing global industry. In 1996 the global sales of solar electric increased by 16% on 1995 figures.(9) In total some 90 Megawatts (MW) of solar electric was sold, compared with 77MW in 1995.(10) The global market for solar electric in 1996 represented sales of some £400 million.
Two British companies (BP Solar and Intersolar) sold 10MW of solar electric panels in 1996. This represents just over 10% of the global market share and represents exports of some £40 million. The other leading solar companies are Siemens Solar, Solarex and Kyocera. These three companies have some 45% of the share of the global market.(11)
A study by the European Commission examined the potential size of the global market in 2010 and the employment generated, based upon the world market expanding at annual rates ranging from 15% to 35%.
Assuming growth remains the same at about 15% per year, then by 2010 some 630MW a year will be sold and 150,000 people will be employed by the industry, a fifth of these jobs being in Europe.
(12) At these “business as usual” levels of growth, the industry would be worth some £5-£7 billion pounds a year.(13)
If growth expands dramatically to a 35% growth rate per year then by 2010 the industry will be selling some 8,000 MW per year. This would represent sales of some £50-£70 billion per year. Globally the industry would be employing some 1.3 million people with some 300,000 of these jobs in Europe.(14)
These growth rates and the location of new factories and jobs are highly dependent upon the level of international and national support afforded to the technology. While the UK is doing nothing to stimulate growth at home a number of countries have either undertaken ambitious programmes or are currently planning to dramatically expand their efforts.
As a result, the economies of these countries will benefit. Their solar industries will be at an advantage as they will be able to scale up significantly to meet the demand of the national programmes. New factories will be built and new jobs will be created in these countries. In the longer-term, as costs reduce further, the solar industries of these countries will be best placed to capture the expanding global market and generate valuable exports for the countries in question.
By continuing to ignore the development of solar electric in the UK the Government is missing out on opportunities to generate new solar industries and new jobs for Britain.
Japan represents the most dramatic example of a country dedicated to significantly expanding the use of solar electric. In 1994 Japan announced details of the world’s largest ever deployment of solar power. The programme means that some 70,000 homes will be powered by solar electric panels by the year 2000.(15) Last year the solar home programme was oversubscribed five fold due to the vast level of interest being expressed by the Japanese public and some 1,500 homes were solarised.
Installed targets of 400MW by the year 2000 and 4,600MW by 2010 have been set and Government finance to deliver these targets has been approved. In 1996 the Japanese Government allocated £90 million to the programme.(16)
The Japanese programme, due to its significant size, expects to reduce the present costs of a solar system three fold (from £6/watt installed down to £2/watt installed). If they are successful, this means that solar electric will be generating electricity at around 12 pence per kWh.(17) The Japanese industry is expanding rapidly as a direct result of the “guaranteed market” offered by the “70,000 homes” programme. Last year sales of Japanese technology increased by 21% with Kyocera, the largest Japanese manufacturer, increasing their sales by 50% to 9MW.(18)
In 1996 the US Government spent £42.5 million on solar electric programmes.(19) In addition the US is running a £336 million rolling Government/industry programme in partnership with over 90 utility companies to implement a mass commercialisation strategy for solar power. The Government provides a third of the finance and the industry two-thirds.
The US Government is convinced that the construction of new factories in the United States will bring long-term benefits. In March 1996 it was announced that solar electric will play a prominent role in the 1,000MW of renewable technologies to be developed in Nevada as part of the Nevada Solar Enterprise Zone.
Furthermore, this month industry analysts announced that the US Department of Energy may be soon proposing a “Million Roof” programme which could result in the installation of solar electric systems on one million rooftops in the U.S. during the next decade.(20)
In 1990 the German Government launched the “1,000 Rooftop” programme and provided financial support to the German public to go solar. This, because of its popularity, resulted in solar being installed on two-thousand family homes.(21) In 1995 Greenpeace Germany launched its “Cyrus” campaign to encourage German householders to purchase a solar system. This led to four-thousand people pledging to purchase a solar system. Over the last two years around a further one thousand homes have been installed with solar systems in Germany. All these installations obtained Federal and state government support.(22)
The Dutch Government intends to install some 250MW of solar electric systems by the year 2010. A major focus of the Dutch programme is to stimulate the development of solar electric within the construction industry; particularly volume housebuilders. The largest solar housing estate in the world, comprising some seventy homes was completed last year. This year a four hundred home housing project will be built in a joint development between housebuilding companies, the local electrical utilities and the Dutch government.
John Major, Letter to Greenpeace, 26th September, 1996
Greenpeace, Building Homes with Solar Power, 1996
Photovoltaics: A Market Overview, 1993. James and James UK.
Government Photovoltaic Budgets & Programmes, Strategies Unlimited, 1996
Hansard 26th June 1995 Col 452
DTI Press notice, 13th December 1996, P96/931
Trade and Industry 1996. The Government”s expenditure plans 1996-7 to 1998-99. DTI.
Department of Trade and Industry (1992). The Potential Generating Capacity of PV-Clad Buildings in the UK, ETSU S 1365-P1
Department of Trade and Industry (1992). The Potential Generating Capacity of PV-Clad Buildings in the UK, ETSU S 1365-P1
Grid Connection of photovoltaic systems. ETSU S 1394-P1 DTI Report 1993.
PV News, February 1997 Volume 16 Number 2.
PV News, February 1997 Volume 16 Number 2.
PV News, February 1997 Volume 16 Number 2.
Photovoltaics in 2010. European Commission, Directorate-General for Energy, 1995.
Photovoltaic Insider's Report. February, 1997. Vol. XV1 No.2
Photovoltaics in 2010. European Commission, Directorate-General for Energy, 1995.
Government Photovoltaic Budgets & Programmes, Strategies Unlimited, February 1996.
Government Photovoltaic Budgets & Programmes, Strategies Unlimited, February 1996.
Government Photovoltaic Budgets & Programmes, Strategies Unlimited, February 1996.
PV News, February 1997 Volume 16 Number 2.
PV News, November 1995. Fiscal Year 1996. US$ 65 million
Photovoltaic Insider”s Report. February, 1997. Vol. XV1 No.2
Fraunhofer Insitute. “1000 Roofs” Measurement and analysis Programme, 1995.
PV News, February 1997 Volume 16 Number 2. |