02 Sep 2010
James Lovelock has questioned whether people have the intelligence to deal with a concept as complicated as climate change.
Creating workable and effective policies in this area is certainly daunting, as Government is increasingly discovering.
As their policies start to be implemented, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches – starting with the recently introduced Feed-in-Tariff.
A generous tariff
Since its introduction, hardly a week has gone by without an organisation contacting us with a Blackadder-style cunning plan to make money from the new Feed-in Tariff.
Fundamentally, organisations have worked out that the Government has got its sums wrong and that the tariff is far too generous if certain criteria are followed by the installers.
They have calculated that panels need to be installed in the south or south-west to make a serious profit. They need to be able to install the panels quickly, at a reasonable scale and facing south.
They also need to sign a 25 year agreement with the organisation or person who is having the panels installed on their land or property.
If they meet these criteria, organisations have calculated that they can cover the capital costs of the installation themselves, provide free or discounted electricity and be able to start to generate a profit on their investment after six to eight years.
The economics of the tariff have resulted in a plethora of initiatives. For instance, owners of land in the south-west from farmers to industrial sites are being asked to rent their land for panels. Cornwall County Council is aware of at least 30 developers who have approached organisations in the county.
Homeowners in the south-west are being approached with an offer of free panels and discounted electricity if they make their roof space available for a 25 year period. Housing Associations and other community buildings are also being approached with an offer of free or discounted electricity in return for their roof space.
Good intentions but...
The Feed-in Tariff was introduced by Government with all the right intentions but the reality is certainly not quite what they expected. Clearly the tariff is socially unjust.
It penalises people in the north, people who do not own sufficiently large enough roof areas to interest the installers and those who are not in a position to make a 25 year commitment.
Environmentally the tariff will have some negative implications. The offer of free or discounted electricity reduces an economic driver for energy efficiency. There are implications linked to putting panels on agricultural land.
Nobody has looked at the impact on soil erosion, flood run-off, the aesthetics, or the fact that it might decrease the amount of land desperately needed for growing food.
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WHAT DO YOU THINK? Add your comment
Sad to see Global Action Plan taking such a position
As someone who installed the first feed-in-tariff metered solar home installation in London in 1999, when it had a payback period of over 200 years, to show it could be done on existing homes, this article is terribly sad and in many cases totally illogical. Just one example of many is he suggests refusing the support to householders but giving it instead to industrial units and industrial farmers is more socially equitable! The logic of his north/south issue is that no renewable subsidy would be provided at all, as many houses will never be able to produce their own energy. I would be interested in hearing what Mr Restorick's own carbon footprint is? 3 Acorns Retro Eco-house Camberwell, London.
Posted by Donnachadh McCarthy, 24 Sep 2010
Get your facts right? Oh the irony!!
My comment is really directed at Mr Mavarakis who seems a little confused. Whilst I agree with his comments on FITs in general he has made some startling comments regarding what he calls ""get rich quick idiots" offering domestic solar PV systems. He states - that he has "looked" at the model and thinks these companies will go bust because of the logistical problems, physical constaints and legal complications. Although he gives no further explanation. No doubt some of these companies will go bust (for many reasons) - but some will not. Several of these companies that offer free solar installations on domestic roof tops have serious financial backing (in the tens of millions) and have had their model taken apart by some of the best legal and business minds in the country. It simply isnt possible in this current market to get serious financial backing without having had your "model" thoroughly examined so for Mr Mavarakis to broadly cliam they are run by "get rich quick idiots" is a silly statement to make. It seems a bit of a sweeping statement to say they all will go bust doesnt it? As we see it the weak link is with commercial solar PV (which incidentally FITs was never really intended for). FITs was designed to allow energy generation at the point of use (exactly what domestic installations do)and not allow some "idiot" to install banks of Solar PV on commercial farm land to take advantage of the tariff. There are also serious implications with regard to security of the installations but I digress. I wonder what Mr Mavarakis will do if in the forthcoming government spending review such commercial installations are curtailed under the FITs remit? Who might the "idiot" be then one wonders? :)
Posted by madseller, 13 Sep 2010
Do your homework
It never ceases to amaze me with the information that is available how people who promote themselves in the manner they do can't actually get the facts right. Mr Restorick, you talk about Britain as though the FIT laws have just been invented here. WE ARE 10/15 YEARS BEHIND THE REST OF EUROPE and the rest of the WORLD,being about 40 other countries that have had FITS for up to that period of time and the tariffs in the UK are in line with the rest of those Countries. I suggest you study Germany, Spain France Italy Greece etc etc to see how it is going to develop here and in fact because our irradation is only the same as Northern Europe the returns are as not as good as somewhere like Italy and Greece.If you really think climate change is a fact then changing peoples mind set in this way with this technology is a start, and OK there are idiots out there thinking it's a fast buck but they will go bust, because WE HAVE LOOKED at the financial model and these get rich quick idiots have not though through the logistical problems physical constrains and legal complications of offering free solar panels. When they go bust doesn't matter, because the more PV the less carbon energy used,OH, and before you bring up another incorrect fact like the rest of your ill informed opinion the carbon pay back of a system is 2-4 years, and there is no soil erosion,and so on. PV parks provide extremelly secure chemical free wild life refuges free from human interferance and can if desired grazing, on land that can be return very easily back to arable use after 25/40 years if that became a real necessity.At the rate of development PV will become a major source of carbon free electrical generation in the World in 50 years.
Posted by Stellios Mavarakis, 05 Sep 2010
Cobblers
Northerners have a far better wind resource than homes in the south. Use what resources you have to the best ability.
Posted by Ted Marynicz, 03 Sep 2010