It is no longer credible to say that solar can’t play a major role in a
sustainable energy mix. Deutsche Bahn intends to run the entire German
railway system on wind, solar and hydropower. The German economics ministry
has collaborated with German companies to run a scaled model of the national
economy on a real mix of renewables, including solar, and concluded that a
healthy modern economy could be run on renewables, including baseload
electricity. In a report due out later this year, the International Energy
Agency will admit that solar can provide 60% of global electricity by 2060.
It is not good enough to say, as some do, that if a global mass market is
inevitable, the UK should sit back and partake come the day, not before.
This is a strategic miscalculation. We do not want to be importing every
aspect of our energy infrastructure ad infinitum. National security
considerations such as peak oil increasingly demand that we have domestic
industries that are as stand-alone as humanly possible.
In this respect there should be many opportunities for the government. The
prime minister has emphasised the Big Society idea as a flagship programme
of his tenure, and he envisions many of the jobs that must countervail the
austerity measures will come from British participation in the green
industrial revolution that he says is unfoldling around the world. Solar is
an important part of that. Ask the Chinese. In 2000 they had little solar.
Now every second solar cell is made in China. The government would not have
to do much to fashion a Big Society/green industrial revolution case-history
worth boasting about.
Around the nation, as things stand, thousands of jobs are being created in the
embryonic British solar industry. Tens of thousands of citizens are in the
process of being empowered in community projects. The cause of this is a
solar-energy feed-in tariff: a market-enablement process used by over 40
countries around the world that entails premium pricing for solar
photovoltaic (PV) electricity funded by a small levy on all energy bills.
With its feed-in tariff introduced in April last year, the UK has belatedly
joining the party in one of the fastest growing markets of any kind
globally.
The opportunities extend well beyond solar. Solar generation would soon be
marriable at scale with the energy efficiency measures due to be stimulated
by the government’s Green Deal. Innovative integrated energy-services
financing would become possible, unleashing substantial net energy cost
savings.
Feed-in tariffs are supposed to decrease annually, as solar prices fall. That
is part of their inate attraction. Unlike nuclear, solar does not need
subsidising forever. But the staged reductions in tariff, down to zero
within the decade, have to match the market. It is no good introducing
sudden deep cuts. That stalls a market, as a number of governments have
discovered this year.
The first reductions for UK rooftop solar PV tariffs will begin in April 2012,
and are under review right now. The government has to get this just right.
Reductions in tariff have to be deep enough to fairly reflect falling solar
prices, and not too deep to stall the development of a domestic UK solar
industry.
Ministers like Greg Barker and Chris Huhne understand. Others do not. They
listen to the calls of the nuclear and gas industries, who among others
lobby to slow or kill the solar rollout in multiple countries by cutting
feed-in tariffs to the bone. In France, for example, the nuclear industry
has all but emasculated the French solar feed in tariff, and hence market.
Creating a Big Society/green-industrial-revolution case-history worth bragging
about will involve the government creating a smooth glide path to solar grid
parity in electricity markets. This in turn will involve not listening to
many of the lobbyists working for the big energy companies, and many civil
servants too. They are too wedded to the past, and cannot see what Silicon
Valley investors, and the Chinese see.
Urban Energy
Urban Energy are delighted that nearly half the
population would like to install renewable energy technologies; what
worries us is the lack of awareness surrounding it. To bridge the Green
Gap it’s essential we continue to educate consumers and break down some
of the myths surrounding the Green Deal, energy efficiency and
microgeneration.
Urban
Energy has earned a reputation as the south’s leading renewable energy
specialist. This has been achieved by ensuring that from the initial
point of client contact we offer 1st class customer service and care.
We
only install products that lead the way within the renewable energy
industry and that are renowned for their high quality and ecologically
sound production. This reflects our own high standards and quality
assurance.
We
understand that introducing a renewable energy system to either your
home or business is an investment that lasts for many years. With our
in-house electrical and plumbing division it is our promise to you the
customer that your satisfaction and peace of mind throughout this period
is our number one priority.
For further information about Urban Energy products and services:
Call: 0800 232 1624
