The UK government has been looking at the future for solar power and has now published a very upbeat plan: UK Solar PV Strategy Part 1: Roadmap to a Brighter Future. The central forecast from DECC at present is for a total of 10GW of capacity to be installed by 2020, over four times the current level, but the Energy Minister, Greg Barker, in his introduction says “Along with many in the industry, I think that up to 20GW of deployed solar is not only desirable but also potentially achievable within a decade.” As Bloomberg reported it, UK plans to increase solar power eight-fold by 2020.
The question is, why is the government now so keen on rolling out the most expensive of available renewable energy technologies? There are, in fact, two reasons (in addition to industry lobbying). The first is that new onshore wind farms are increasingly contentious, and offshore ones expensive to build and maintain, whereas few people seem too bothered about the rash of solar panels which has appeared on roofs across the country. The second is that policy is driven by the target of 15% of the country’s overall energy use being from renewables by 2020. In simple terms, politicians are desperate to achieve this target in whatever way is likely to result in the fewest objections from the voting public.
Unfortunately, such targets often provide perverse incentives. They are set, with the best of intentions, to achieve a particular policy aim, but over time they become the policy. Ideally, governments should set top-level goals – improved academic achievement, more effective delivery of healthcare, a secure and affordable energy supply – and let others work out how to deliver these in the most efficient way.
In the present case, the overall objective is to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide against an agreed baseline. Ignoring for now the elephant in the room – whether this is a sensible and worthwhile top-level goal – we need to look at it at various levels. In practical terms, the only one to consider is the global level. After all, a country might choose to move its entire economy to a pre-industrial state, but this would be completely irrelevant if emissions from the world as a whole continued to increase. This is effectively the situation we find ourselves in now: EU Member States have committed themselves to deep cuts in emissions while the emerging economies grow strongly and their own growth in emissions swamps whatever savings are made here.
The leap of faith taken by many governments in the industrialised world is that, by developing and implementing renewable energy systems, they will create a precedent which others will eventually follow and that, when they do, the industries established here will be able to service the needs of those newly converted to the cause. Let’s, for the sake of argument, say that this is a sensible course of action. The next question would be how might such a strategy be achieved in the most cost-effective way.
However, that question seems to have been ignored by governments. Instead, EU Member States have committed to a series of targets as part of an overall road map to achieve radical decarbonisation of their economies by 2050, whatever the cost. Setting emissions reduction goals should have been enough, but there are now (technically) binding agreements on both energy efficiency and use of renewables.
And it is the renewables element on which many governments are now fixated, perhaps because this is the most visible manifestation of the commitment. Attempts in the UK to increase energy efficiency by offering ‘Green Deal’ loans for house insulation or new boilers have been farcically ineffective. With an unfortunate but rather typical focus on the short term, our elected representatives have decided that the only way is renewables.
What they seem to have failed to do is to learn the lessons from other countries. Germany has some of the most expensive electricity in Europe. This is due in no small part to it also being one of the largest generators of renewable energy. In particular, it has the world’s largest number of solar panels, capable of producing a significant amount of the country’s total needs. In July this year, a new record was set, with photovoltaic systems contributing 5.1TWh to the country’s grid, with a maximum output of 24GW on 21 July contributing to a total of 50GW (see Germany breaks monthly solar generation record, 6.5 times more than US best).
This rather breathlessly enthusiastic article makes the point that Germany is a relatively grey country – as is the UK – which means that overall capacity factors will be modest (let’s say 10% to be generous). So, despite the falling cost of installations, such a low effective utilisation factor makes economic deployment in mid-latitudes very difficult. As importantly, the German electricity grid is having to cope with summer midday peaks of over 20GW of solar electricity, with nothing at all being contributed from PV panels on winter evening peaks.
For the German consumer, the more immediate problem is the high and rising cost of the energiewende. At the same time, the forced closure of nuclear stations and the preference given to renewable energy has had the perverse effect of making dirty, inefficient lignite-fired stations more economic to run than modern gas-fired plant or even pumped storage systems. Germany is getting itself into a deeper and deeper hole, currently made tolerable only by the strength of the economy. For more detail on the problems, readers would be strongly advised to read a series of three Spiegel International articles, starting with Germany’s Energy Poverty: How Electricity Became a Luxury Good.
If the UK chooses a similar path, the country will be saddled with 20GW of solar generating capacity – large amounts of which will appear on farmland rather than domestic roofs – capable of supplying half the total demand in mid-summer and nothing in mid-winter. The costs of grid reinforcement to cope with this would add another burden for consumers. Truly, those who do not learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.
Martin Livermore
The Scientific Alliance
St John’s Innovation Centre
Cowley Road
Cambridge CB4 0WS
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