Evil climate sceptics bashing solar power as per usual...

... or maybe not?

Emailed in by Ben Jamin' and Physiocrat, article by Euan Mearns

A new study by Ferroni and Hopkirk [1] estimates the ERoEI of temperate latitude solar photovoltaic (PV) systems to be 0.83. If correct, that means more energy is used to make the PV panels than will ever be recovered from them during their 25 year lifetime. A PV panel will produce more CO2 than if coal were simply used directly to make electricity.

Worse than that, all the CO2 from PV production is in the atmosphere today, while burning coal to make electricity, the emissions would be spread over the 25 year period. The image shows the true green credentials of solar PV where industrial wastelands have been created in China so that Europeans can make believe they are reducing CO2 emissions.

Please note, the article refers to solar panels at temperate latitudes such as Europe. Solar panels might well be net energy generators in very sunny areas - the question is, how far from the Equator is the break-even point at which the return turns negative?

UPDATE: Bayard in the comments:

"A PV panel will produce more CO2 than if coal were simply used directly to make electricity."

but only if no renewable energy was used to make the PV panel. While that is probably true, it ain't necessarily so."

I didn't bother with that scenario because that would be an equally stupid thing to do - using up 1 unit of PV energy to generate another 0.83...

Who he?

Ashley Seager is managing director of AEA Solar GmbH. He was the Guardian's economics correspondent for five years and left in 2010.

For the more personally lucrative fields of taxpayer sourced subsidy? Certainly not.

The report from the Committee on Climate Change arguing that investing in renewable energy would eventually save consumers a lot of money is spot on.

We are regularly told by conventional utility companies, many politicians and commentators that energies such as solar and wind are hopelessly expensive and reliant on enormous subsidy.

But this is simply wrong.

Oh? Tell us more Ashley.

Solar PV, the area in which my company operates, is a case in point. Three years ago firms like ours were paying about €3,600 per installed kilowatt of solar capacity on barn roofs in Germany. Today it can be done for just over €1,000 – a staggering 70% fall. That is seriously cheap and will just keep getting cheaper.

Newly built solar plants are already considerably cheaper than new nuclear plants per kilowatt hour of electricity produced and we are almost at the stage where we don't need a guaranteed price (known as a feed-in tariff) because solar energy will compete head on with conventional energy.

True, there is an ongoing cost from the German government's previous support for solar, but is much lower than the subsidies pumped by the western world into nuclear, coal, oil and gas over the past decades.

Sorry, but did I just spot the “S” word and terms like “Feed in Tariff” and “Guaranteed Price” Ashley?

And solar is starting to pay its subsidy back. Germany now has more than 30 gigaWatt peak (gWp) of solar plants installed, such that on almost all days in the spring, summer and autumn, solar energy surges into the grid at a time when demand is at is strongest (air conditioning etc is running like mad) and when spot market energy prices are at their highest.

Ashley doesn’t unfortunately reference the overall situation in the UK but luckily we already know just how successful Solar has been in the UK and how taking away the “someone else can pay” public subsidy has no impact whatsoever on that success.

We shall boldly go looking for those profits that Not Red Ed's whizzo scheme promised

Spotted by Bob E in The Guardian:

17 companies said the way in which changes to the subsidies were handled was disastrous for their businesses

The cuts [to the tariff rate], and the impression they gave of a policy that could change at very little notice, put off potential customers. Prior to the cuts announcement, the solar panel industry had been enjoying a boom in the UK, with more than 100,000 new installations before the changes were announced in October 2011. But the number of new installations dropped by 90% in the wake of the government's sudden changes.

Before the cuts, householders were paid for their solar generation at 43.3p per kWh of electricity generated, but in October 2011 the government said this would be cut to 21p, reducing returns from about 7% to 4%. Under the original plans, the lower rate would have applied to installations from 12 December that year, but the courts subsequently forced the government to honour the original tariff for anyone installing before 3 March, 2012 because the amount of notice given was too short.

The government said the changes were necessary as the cost of solar panels had come down since the original tariff was introduced, with the result that households were making excessive returns. The cost of the feed-in tariff is met through additions to energy bills, and ministers wanted to cap this at £860m, while the runaway rate of installation in 2011 threatened to cost far more. Many in the industry accepted that the tariff should be cut, but were angered by the government's failure to give enough notice.

Squeal piggies, squeal! Those subsidies were so ludicrously high, it must have been clear to anybody with half a brain that the good times wouldn't last.

The irony is that although businesses which installed solar panels could claim the feed-in-tarriffs as well, the income therefrom was liable to VAT and corporation tax as normal and the rental value of the panels (estimated at 5% of installation cost) was added to the rental value of the premises for Business Rates purposes.

So by and large, the value of the subsidy was wiped out, and to the extent that there were any net subsidies to be collected, they accrued to the owner of the building anyway. If a tenant wanted to install solar, the landlord would bump up the rent to soak up the value of the subsidy, if any, and under English land law, if the tenant moves out, those panels belong to the building and hence the landlord.

Fun Online Polls: Subsidies for windmills and solar panels & your favourite Armstrong

The results to last week's Fun Online Poll on an excellent turnout of 190 votes (thanks to everybody who took part) were as follows:

How much extra are you prepared to pay on your electricity bill to subsidise windmills and solar panels?

Nothing - 91%
£10 a year - 4%
£100 a year - 3%
£1,000 a year - 2%

I don't think that requires much further comment, does it?
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Not much else is going on at the moment, so let's find out who your favourite Armstrong is: the moon landing faker-cum-intrepid space pioneer; the cancer-surviving mono-bollocked drugs cheat ex-fiancé of planet-saver Sheryl Crow; the half of the comedy duo Armstrong and Miller who features in the Direct Line adverts and doesn't look like Rob Brydon; or the gravelly-voiced trumpet player?

Or indeed one of the dozens of other similarly named people listed on this Wiki page.

Vote here or use the widget in the sidebar.

Wind powered Indian bicycle marketing.

Compiled by Bob E.

Exhibit One:

Ed Miliband’s controversial scheme to encourage homeowners to install solar panels and wind turbines is set to cost families an extra £1billion in higher bills, figures reveal... Tory MP Dominic Raab said the scheme was another example of Labour profligacy. He added: "Ed Miliband’s flagship green subsidies have proved a ludicrously expensive way of backing inefficient technology."

Exhibit Two, from Private Eye 1331 published 11th January 2013 - Page 9 - Keeping The Lights On

Francis Maude, Minister for the Cabinet Office, slipped out an announcement just before Christmas unveiling a plan to fund uneconomic windfarms by forcing the Government Procurement Service to buy electricity from them at above market rates.

The PE piece continues for a further 4 paragraphs, one of which mentions the GPS being instructed by Ministers to sign up to 15 year contracts and that the policy means "[the GPS] will now be forced to underwrite projects so uneconomic they cannot attract finance even with the lavish level of subsidy already available" but sadly none of them contain a quote from Dominic Raab moaning about Coalition profligacy or ludicrously expensive ways of backing inefficient technology.

Exhibit Three:

Under a scheme agreed by Labour leader Ed Miliband during the last Labour government, but implemented by Coalition ministers, the contracts guarantee that the power firms will be paid even if they fail to deliver energy to households.

Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who chairs the PAC, described the contracts as a “licence for the private sector to print money at the expense of hard-pressed consumers”.

To summarise that for the benefit of Margaret "Memory Loss' Hodge, it was her government which issued the licence to print money and the "private sector" has now started using it.

Solar: A Homeownerist Subsidy?

From the BBC:

The government has pledged it will act if commercial operators rush to exploit a subsidy aimed at encouraging homeowners to generate their own solar electricity.

The feed-in tariff scheme was launched last April.

It promised a typical household earnings of £800 a year and savings on their bills of £120.

Energy Minister Greg Barker said he was worried industrial scale projects could eat into the scheme's budget.

Setting aside the fact that solar is a gigantic waste of money right now in the UK, what is the problem with commercial operators running all the subsidised solar production, rather than households? If the purpose of the scheme is to get solar energy then whether it's done by Sid and Doris Bonkers or Evil Capitalists Inc makes little difference, because with a limited budget and defined subsidies, you're going to get the same amount of solar energy.

What occurs to me is that it's simply a way (along with the dozens of ways that Mark has pointed out) of the government doing absolutely anything possible to prop up the housing market. Because the effect of offering people 9% on sticking some solar on their roof is that they spend £10K more on their house rather than £10K into a company building something that makes life even better.