Business Mirror
Published on Monday, 08 October 2012 09:58 Written by Paul Anthony A. Isla / Reporter
THE decreasing costs of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels vis-à-vis the fluctuating cost of electricity will soon reach parity. As the price of solar panels is expected to become less and less expensive over time, households might soon find enough reason in installing solar PV panels in their rooftops to help them manage their power costs.
While the governments of Germany and Thailand have found solace in developing solar power-based generation, the Philippine government remains cautious in maximizing the technology, citing the high costs of solar panels that make it an unattractive piece to the energy mix.
Though the Philippines enjoys a good amount of the sun’s radiation due to its tropical maritime climate, it, however, has yet to maximize the full potential of producing energy from the sun.
To date, the Philippines has a 1-megawatt (MW) solar-power plant in Cagayan de Oro, operated by the Cagayan de Oro Electric Power and Light Co. (Cepalco).
The Department of Energy (DOE) has set a 50-MW installation target for solar-based power generation in the next three years. This, however, has caused solar-power proponents in the country to appeal for higher targets, citing that the economies of scale could result in lesser development costs if higher installation targets for solar-power projects are set.
In contrast, Dr. Christoph Menke, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmBH senior energy policy advisor for Southeast Asia, said around 1,000 MW of solar PV panels are now being constructed in Thailand in light of its government’s policy direction for solar PV-based generation.
He added that another 1,000 MW more of solar-based power generation are being planned in Thailand.
In Germany alone, Menke told the participants to the weeklong German Solar Training forum and workshop in Pasig City, the soft costs for residential PV are about $2.7 per watt lower than in the US.
Thomas Chrometzka, Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft e.V (BSW-Solar) international affairs head, said the share of solar PV-based energy in Germany is expected to grow to 4 percent to 28,000 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) by year-end.
He added that solar PV-based electricity production has already grown by 50 percent to 3,720 million kWh in the first half of the year compared to the previous year.
Chrometzka added that solar PV-based power generation could also help in reducing peak power prices by up to 40 percent, as it eases pressure from power plants to produce electricity.
In Germany Chrometzka said the solar PV-based generation’s market segments include ground-mounted applications for power producers and large power users, and rooftop applications for residential, commercial and industrial users. Solar PV rooftop applications in Germany could produce electricity of up to 100 kilowatt-hour at its peak.
Similar to the Philippines, Chrometza said BSW—the German Solar Industry Association—is asking its government for easy and low bureaucratic effort access to grants to enable the highest possible effect.
“The continued expansion of solar power is essential for the success of the energy system transformation in Germany,” he added.
Chrometzka also noted that the share of solar power in the German electricity mix is expected to increase to 70 percent in the next four years from 4 percent at present and approximately 7 percent in 2016.
Since 2008, Chrometzka said, the cost and support for new solar-power systems have been halved, and that support for new solar power will fall by 27 percent, or twice the rate as in last year.
“Solar PV-based generation will be a major pillar of the energy supply system in Germany and worldwide,” he adds.
Menke said that a million households in Germany have already invested in solar rooftop applications. He said more than €20 billion in solar PV panels are invested as a “personal pension fund.” He said solar PV-based power generation is expected to cover at least 30 gigawatts of Germany’s energy demand during daytime by year-end, which could reach up to 52 gigawatts in the near future.
Menke said solar PV-based generation could cover at least 2 gigawatts to 5 gigawatts of energy demand during daytime and up to 3 gigawatts in off-grid areas.
In Thailand solar PV-based generation is expected to cover for 5 gigawatts to 6 gigawatts of its energy demand during daytime.
Between 2015 and 2018, Menke said the cost of solar PV panels could reach grid parity in the cost of household electricity in Germany.
He added that the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) estimates systems costs for solar PV-based generation will drop by 50 percent until 2020.
Menke said the continuation of smart feed-in tariff policies could result in generation-grid parity compared to conventional power plants by 2018 to 2020 in some countries and even 2017 in other countries.
For the Philippines, Menke said the solar potential in the Philippines is definitely much better than in Germany.
“Solar PV-based generation in the Philippines is only at its infancy stage. But the DOE is said to look at a target of 300 MW in the next few years. We hope the Philippine government will soon acknowledge that this can only be a start and that the potential for solar [power] is much higher than the targeted 300 MW,” said Menke.
He said good things could not be expected to happen overnight even though you have good policy.
“A transition to an efficient market transformation can help lower the cost, which is what we want to achieve in the Philippines. We need to lower costs. To date, there are a lot of high transaction costs to get the solar PV system in the Philippines,” he notes.
Tetchi Cruz Capellan, Philippine Solar Power Alliance founding president, said a National Statistics Office study recently showed that power and water accounts for 10 percent of an average family’s monthly expenditure.
Solar PV rooftop installations can help these families reduce their consumption to increase their disposable income, Capellan added.
An EPIA report shows, Capellan said, that a solar PV rooftop installation is estimated to annually produce 3,300 kilowatt-hours, while a residential household annually consumes around 3,500 kilowatt-hours on the average.
Capellan said the high cost of panels have deterred households from installing solar PV panels in their rooftops in the past.
However, with solar PV panel prices currently dropping by 19 percent, it is expected that installation of solar PV panels in rooftops would pick up.
“In order to transfer the benefits of distributed energy technology to consumers, the fiscal incentives have to be made available to solar-rooftop integrators and not just large-scale developers,” says Capellan.
She said they are negotiating with large real-estate developers to consider installing solar PV rooftop panels in their projects.
“We are exploring partnerships with local real-estate developers for their new projects,” she said.
Capellan said they are proposing to developers to tuck the solar rooftop-panel cost of P378,000 to the housing-project cost.
She said the return on investment for a solar rooftop could take about seven years and will be incurred from the savings in power costs. A household with 2-kW solar kit could save around P4,000 in their monthly power bills.
“There are about half a million new construction of residential [projects] that are going onstream every year. If there is only 10 percent of that that can be converted or [solarized] on their rooftop, then that is a big help both to the DUs so that it can reduce their investments in transmission line and in generation, as well as in the total economic situation where we reduce our imports of fossil fuel,” Capellan says. source
In Photo: Thomas Chrometzka, head of International Affairs, Bundesverband Solarwirtschaft, giving lectures to the members of the press during the Media Briefing on Renewable and Solar Energy from a German Perspective held at a hotel in Ortigas Center. (Nonoy Lacza)
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