Sun Shines for Bigger Solar Future & Arab Spring Boosts Sahara’s Desertec

Renewable energy guru Professor Joachim Luther advances  that solar is the clear leader in the renewable
energy race, predicting it could be the majority energy source for the world by
2100, providing more than 65% of all energy, leaving fossil fuels languishing
at no more than 20%. Recharge News reports that the Arab Spring could be the
best thing to happen to the planned big scale Desertec solar in the Sahara.

Singapore, 24 November 2011

Solar Rises to the Top of the Renewable Fuel Gauge

Ken Hickson reports on “Meeting Our Future Energy Needs:
What Role Will Renewables and Energy Efficiency Play? organised by Institute of
South East Asian Studies, Energy Studies Institute, Innovation Norway and
Norwegian Embassy in Singapore.

It was billed as an event to get people thinking and acting.
And with the line-up of experts from around the world, it certainly did that.

The organisers acknowledged: “Renewable energy will play an
increasingly important part of the global energy mix in the years to come.
However, additional efforts are needed to make these forms of energy more
commercially competitive. Such efforts may include technological advances, regulatory
efforts, financial mechanisms and public-private partnerships.

Featuring renewable energy and energy efficiency expertise
from industry and academe, this seminar certainly looked at current and
developing thrusts in renewable energy production and use, energy efficiency
and new ways to reduce future carbon emissions.

While energy efficiency and all renewables had a good share
of time and space at the half day event, it was solar which rose to the top of
the renewable pile, thanks to an insightful overview by none other than global
solar guru Professor Joachim Luther named by Time Magazine in 2008 as a “hero
of the environment”.

Singapore is fortunate to have him now as the CEO of the
Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore (SERIS). He is also a visiting
Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, at the
National University of Singapore. He was a member of the International Panel of
Experts (IPE) on Sustainability of the Built Environment for the Building and
Construction Authority of Singapore (BCA) in 2008 and of the Steering Committee
on Environmental Sustainability (CES) of Singapore’s Housing and Development
Board (HDB).

For someone who is grounded in nuclear physics – Professor
Luther holds a PhD degree in atomic physics from the University of Hannover,
Germany and was professor of applied physics at the University of Oldenburg in
the 1974 to 1993 – he has moved totally away from the nuclear option, in the
same way the Government of his homeland has.

Germany is now the among the biggest users of solar energy
from photovoltaic (PV)  panels in the
world, largely due to leadership from the Government, advances in research and
development in solar in the country and due to a the incentives of a feed in
tariff for homeowners and business who install solar.

Professor Luther sees incredible growth in production of
solar PV energy and adoption of solar. More than anything, this will be helped
by price. He foresees the price of conventional electricity going up and solar
electricity coming down. Studies done in Singapore show that by 2020 the cost
per kWh of electricity (largely produced from gas) could be 5% higher from a
2011 base, while solar PV sourced electricity could be between 7% and 13% less
per kWh.

Where does the cost reduction come from? According to the
professor:

• Higher efficiency of energy conversion
• Less material consumption
• Low-cost materials
• Optimised manufacture, mass production
• Optimised module technologies
• Optimised grid integration (smart grids)
• New concepts of photovoltaic energy conversion

While he concentrated in his talk on solar PV, he also sees
tremendous opportunity for large scale solar thermal plants to help meet future
renewable energy demand.

He uses a colourful graph produced in 2003 by the German
Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU) which dramatically shows a predominant
role for solar – PV and thermal – in the future. In fact, by 2050 solar appears
as the largest chunk in the renewable energy mix, which makes up close to 50%
of energy from all sources.

But from the projections to 2100, the predominant colour in
the graph is yellow (for solar PV and thermal) making up more than 65% of all
energy, with other renewables amounting to 15%, while the fossil fuels are
yesterday’s energy, reduced to around 20% of the total.

At the time, 2003, when the WBGU report entitled  “Towards Sustainable Energy Systems” – came
out, it clearly said: “Over the long term, the rising primary energy
requirement can only be met through vigorous utilization of solar energy – this
holds by far the largest sustainable potential. To tap this potential in time,
installed capacity will need to grow ten-fold every decade – now and over the
long term. The proportion of renewable energies in the global energy mix should
be raised from its current level of 12.7 per cent to 20 per cent by 2020, with
the long-term goal of more than 50 per cent by 2050.”

As you would expect for a seasoned solar expert, Professor
Luther clearly supports that view and uses the graph to illustrate the role
that solar can play in the future. Not as an “also-ran” among a mix of existing
and potential renewable energy technologies, but as the clear leader in the
field, by far the predominant clean energy of the future.

Source: www.seris.sg, www.innovationnorway.no, www.iseas.edu.sg, www.esi.nus.edu.sg

Recharge News:  18
November 2011

Backers of the €400bn ($550bn) Desertec solar project are
growing increasingly bullish over its prospects, with the political landscape
across the Middle East and North Africa shifting towards more democratic
structures.

As the Arab Spring consolidates, the vision of building
concentrating solar power plants across North Africa’s deserts to supply
electricity to the region, as well as Europe, is gaining credibility. It has
struck just the right note at the right time in many quarters.

Fast progress is being made in Morocco, the starting point
for the ambitious project. Agreements have been reached ­between the Desertec
Industrial Initiative and the Moroccan Agency for Solar Energy to start
building a 150MW array that will later be expanded to 500MW. Construction is
due to start next year.

In the long term, Morocco will be a key first “reference
point” for the overall Desertec vision. The country’s existing transmission
interconnection with Spain, established many years ago, already allows energy
to be exported to Europe.

It is hoped the success of the Morocco-Spain link can be
built on, with additional projects planned in Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt, where
discussions and framework studies have ­begun. Egypt, which connects the North
African Sahara with the ­Middle East, will play a crucial role in the years
ahead.

With Libya set to embark on a massive post-conflict
reconstruction effort, it is hoped that projects such as Desertec could
contribute to rebuilding its war-torn economy and provide much-needed jobs.

A product of the Desertec Foundation, a global network of
governments, companies and think-tanks, the project has corporate backers from
the energy, technology and construction sectors, as well as banks and a
reinsurer.

Many big challenges lie ahead — not least from cash-strapped
Greece, which is promoting its Helios project to export solar electricity to
Germany, claiming that this is more politically and economically feasible than
Desertec.

However, the Arab Spring offers a real chance for Europe and
North Africa to develop stronger political, economic and social ties. What
better way to represent the dawning of a new relationship than by moving ahead
with a visionary project to bring clean energy to Europe.

Expectations surrounding the forthcoming climate change
summit in Durban are low, but it may be possible to make progress on issues
such as the establishment of an international Green Climate Fund, which was
agreed in Copenhagen in 2009.

The fund has proved hugely contentious, with governments
from developing and developed countries alike split over its size, and how the
cash will be raised and distributed.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has appealed for a
concerted effort in South Africa to establish the $100bn-per-year fund, warning
that an empty shell is not sufficient, and that even in the current economic
climate, the world cannot afford delays.

Although UN climate
chief Christiana Figueres is playing down the likelihood of a successor
agreement to Kyoto being agreed at Durban, Ban has been much more upbeat —
suggesting a compromise might still be possible.

Fears are growing that failure to agree a new deal could see
the Kyoto Protocol lapse, removing binding emissions targets from many
countries and the regulatory regime that supports an international carbon
market. Governments must come to Durban willing to compromise to stop that
happening.

Source: www.rechargenews.com