See that shiny new smartphone in your hand - I had one of those 10
years ago. Granted it was big, ugly,
slow, buggy and furiously expensive, but at the time it was at the cutting edge
of mobile technology. Now of course
smartphones are powerful, ubiquitous and above all cheap. This is largely
thanks to continued technological advancement that’s made electronics cheaper
and better year after year, a process known in the industry as Moore’s Law.
The reason I mention this is that the world desperately needs energy
technologies that are following a similar ‘better, cheaper’ path. The lack of any meaningful media coverage of the current Rio+20
conference is making a rather telling point - the media and the world’s leaders are squarely
focused on our economic woes. Environmental concerns are, it seems,
yesterday’s news. Against this harsh backdrop green energy will start having to pay its way in cold hard cash, rather
than avoided external costs added in a cost-benefit analysis.
Into this space steps solar photovoltaic (electric) technology. This technology’s most recent brush with the
UK news has been through the Feed-in-Tariffs scheme. This is (or was) a generous subsidy scheme to
support the use of solar PV that was suddenly scaled back, much to distress of
the solar industry and environmentalists alike. The Government’s stated reasons for reducing
the available subsidy was the falling cost of PV modules, which made an already
generous payment over the top and unaffordable.
So what’s the real story?
Well, the internet is awash with suggestions that solar is following a
Moore’s Law style path, and good
sources seem to substantiate these claims. Solar
costs have been falling at an exponential rate for several years now and,
assuming this trend continues, it will soon be price competitive with
conventional fossil fuel power in sunnier parts of the world. If this happens solar’s status as a green
technology would become irrelevant: people will use it simply because it is
cost effective to do so.
Of course solar is not a silver bullet to the world’s energy and
climate woes. Solar only produces power
when and where the sun shines. With
electricity notoriously difficult to store and transport solar is only ever
likely to be part of the picture, particularly in the UK where it would take an
awful lot of cost reduction for solar to be competitive with fossil fuels
in the north of the country. And the cost of a solar installation doesn’t simply follow the cost of the
panel – the man crawling round on your roof fitting the system would not be
amused at the idea of his salary following a Moore’s Law style trajectory.
Nevertheless the solar story, and that of some other energy
technologies, offers a little hope for the future in the otherwise grim
environmental picture of 2012. The problem with the barrage of subsidies, taxes
and economic instruments used (or not used) to prop up more expensive forms of
low carbon energy is that they can be reversed. When the economic noose tightens
politicians tend to focus on short term financial problems and lose sight of
longer term environmental issues. The idea that green energy may become
genuinely cheap might therefore offer some degree of environmental salvation in
these uncertain economic times.
Comments
Post a Comment