by Edward Milford
28. September 2009 07:12
Attending the European Photovoltaics (PV) Conference in Hamburg last week where Earthscan ran a bookshop as part of the Renewable Energy World booth was both inspiring and depressing.The industry has grown rapidly to an impressive size. With over 950 exhibitors, this has grown massively in the last few years.
What is a bit depressing, is that it still seems to be on rather shaky foundations. Germany installed a very impressive 1.5 GW of PV in 2008 (Spain may well have installed rather more, but the statistics on the size of the Spanish market last year are currently incomplete.) By comparison, the rate of installation in the UK, to take just one example, is under 4 MW a year – or, to put it another way, Germany installs as much PV in a day as Britain does in a year!
Part of the reason, of course, is the policy framework, and already buffeted by the impact of the credit crunch, the industry may now have to adjust itself to a revised series of support measures. Following the elections in Germany at the week end, the German domestic feed-in tariffs are likely to face significant downward pressure – what impact this will have on the domestic market remains to be seen. Project developers in Germany will then cast their eyes round the world to see what regions may take up the slack, and the feed-in tariffs available for instance in Greece or the Czech Republic may suddenly look more attractive, resulting in a rapid flood of capacity into those markets. While the long-term prospects are undoubtedly excellent, the industry does face a potentially scary period of boom and bust, just when it needs a steady, reliable set of policies on which to base its future plans. All of which emphasises the need to get the structure of support measures, particularly feed-in tariffs correct.
There is now a lot of experience in this area as varying regimes have been tried in many different parts of the world. We will shortly be publishing a new book – Powering the Green Economy by Miguel Mondonca and others which sumamrises the current experience in this area, and explains how to get feed-in tariffs right. I hope that if its lessons are taken on board, the future for PV may continue to be more inspiring than depressing.
