Bitcoin is the future of local and community renewable energy trading and EV charging

Dr Jemma Green, co-founder and chair of Power Ledger.

A new bitcoin company has raised AU$17 million (£10.3m or $13.7m) in 72 hours to support a revolutionary technology platform that will allow electricity producers and consumers to trade directly with each other in tiny units of power.

This article first appeared last week on The Fifth Estate.

Power Ledger is at the forefront of a disruptive wave affecting the energy market that will see the end of the dominance of centralised generation and the increasing participation of building owners, smaller renewable energy suppliers and electric vehicle owners in a peer-to-peer marketplace, all made possible by the new, internet-based encrypted currency, bitcoin.

Consumer are the ultimate disruptors, David Martin, Power Ledger’s co-founder and managing director says. “Consumers have said, ‘I don’t want to buy energy from a coal-fired station’, instead saying this model of energy transaction is what they want to participate in’.“The concept of peer-to-peer [energy] trading is something that has universal appeal to customers … it’s a demonstration that the community wants to be part of the power economy of the future.”

“The concept of peer-to-peer [energy] trading is something that has universal appeal to customers … it’s a demonstration that the community wants to be part of the power economy of the future.”

Dr Jemma Green is the other co-founder and chair of Power Ledger. Her background is in financing and accounting at JP Morgan in London but also financing environmental sectors. In 2013 she returned to Perth and did a PhD in Energy Markets and Disruptive Innovation and also featured as a member of our Sustainability Salon for Perth and WA.

In a podcast with bitcoin.com website she explains how she came by the idea for Power Ledger. She saw that in Australia 20 per cent of houses have rooftop solar but hardly any are on high-rise apartment buildings. She saw the potential for these buildings acting as energy retailers, supplying their residents, and designed a system for a building in Perth.

However, she was unable to find software that allocated the electricity to each apartment until she met some blockchain developers in January last year, and realised blockchain was perfect for her needs.

A problem was identified with the power grid, which is that if some apartment residents are using local energy, fewer are using the grid and so those consumers will pay proportionately more. Power Ledger was formed in May last year, just after the birth of her daughter, to explore how blockchain could circumvent this problem by allocating small transactions to each apartment.

A pilot project in a retirement village south of Perth from August to December 2016 proved the success of the concept. A second trial was conducted in Auckland with the local network operator and linked up with the banking sector to complete the loop.

Sell your solar power when you’re out and don’t need it

“It means that I can sell to others the electricity I might have utilised when I’m not in my apartment,” Green says.

“Schools and any partially occupied building owners can do the same. If I’m not using that electricity, then it can be spread equally across everybody in the apartment block or network. This also incentivises people to use less electricity as they can sell their unused power and make money.”

Power Ledger’s platform connects to smart meters to tally how much power is generated and how much is used. Its software is installed and the revenue information is extracted into the blockchain. It is priced differently according to the time of day and the laws of supply and demand.

The blockchain can be used to fractionalise the power stored in the battery or that is directly generated, and allocate it.

Some of the power may be owned by a third party. For example, a solar farm can be part owned by investors, say a pension scheme, which recoups the revenue from sales.

Presently, if an apartment has rooftop solar and is selling its surplus back to the energy company it will typically not be paid for 60 days. With Power Ledger’s system, participants can monitor their revenue in real time.


“You could also have a marketplace, and this could bring the price down,” Green says. “Supply and demand would set the price. The cost curves for batteries and solar are coming down. It’s low cost electricity.”

Power Ledger issues tokenised values called Sparkz for a unit of electricity, representing one low-value unit in the host country. Electricity is priced in the local currency. Suppliers will be paid in Sparkz at the local cost of power. If the unit price is 30c/kWh they will receive 30 Sparkz. E.g. 1 Sparkz = 1 AUD.

POWRs are another token, which represent investments in the company. Their price can vary, but this does not affect the cost for electricity for the everyday consumer. It is these tokens which are being offered on the market.

“The more application posts offer these, the more competition there is. We’ve created one billion and are selling 350 million at the moment in an initial coin offering (ICO),” Green says.

“We sold 190 million of these last week to raise 17mAU$ in 72 hours in a public pre-sale of 100 million Power Ledger tokens — called POWRs — and a discounted private pre-sale of 90 million POWRs.

“On 8 September we open the public sales and our supporters and platform users say they want to have the option at buying at a market price. This will be determined by the number of tokens left divided by the amount of money pledged in the sale.”

This sale will last for four weeks. Tokens can be bought from the website tge.Power Ledger.io. David Martin believes it is “not unreasonable to expect” that this next offer will raise $20-30 million.

The Sparkz power tokens are effectively a means for markets to trade and self-regulate, says Green. Utilities will purchase the tokens and use them as bonds to trade with customers.

People in the banking industry are a little sceptical of blockchain. This is because there is much vapourware out there, Green believes. “A country’s laws needs to be attached to a project in order to support and validate it,” she explains.

“Power Ledger has a platform, the first in Australia. Our lawyers say our tokens are not a financial product as such, but they are designed to the same standard, with a constitution, shareholders and rules under national corporate law, in order to provide confidence.”

The second pilot was across networks and included banks, which it was really hard to persuade to be involved.

Use bitcoins to pay for charging electric vehicles

In the future Power Ledger hopes to use the experience in a project involving solar-powered apartments in Fremantle, Perth. One of these will possess a shared electric vehicle (EV), charged from the panels, which any member of the public can use.

They will be able to pay for it with the bitcoin platform. They will also be able to charge their own electric vehicle on the charging point. All of this gives the building an income stream on the sale of their generated electricity to EV owners.

This means of selling investment in energy projects could replace power purchase agreements in the future. Instead of a generator selling to a small number of large customers they could sell to many small consumers.

Therefore a developer of a community energy project could sell small amounts to purchasers and in so doing provide liquidity by using the tokens for trading the assets. Power Ledger calls this “fractionalised ownership” or “asset germination”. Green says that this approach will be deployed on a project in the near future and that they are in conversation with financial exchanges that could partner on this.

“Not everyone can afford solar panels,” she says. ‘The people who are paying for it are those who can afford it the least. So our platform will provide low cost renewable power to people who don’t have solar panels while utilising the grid and maintaining its relevance.

“It will also work for any type of electricity. It’s ambivalent about the source, so could be used for wind. Wind and solar are good partners as one is often providing power without the other, lessening the need for storage.”

Green recently attended a gathering hosted by Richard Branson about blockchain on his island where she heard about other social uses for blockchain. For example blockchain is being used to eliminate land theft in places like Georgia and Afghanistan where it’s being used to update the land registry.

“It’s about the democratisation of power,” Green says. “We see ourselves as being a distributed ledger for distributed energy markets. It’s a revolution, away from the one way street of the century old system.

“The old centralised system will continue but we will have a hybrid one. This disruption is happening with our without Power Ledger but what I think our system offers is to do this without the destruction of value.”

David Thorpe is the author of Solar Technology and The One Planet Life.

The cheap and reliable form of solar energy storage for homes that is already on the market

How should we store solar electricity? How about as heat? A Swedish research team is storing solar energy in liquid form, but it is still a way off being commercially available. A competing technology using molten salt is already on the market and shortlisted for a major renewable energy prize. But there is already a much cheaper and already well-proven solution now being used in a brand new context...

A shorter version of this article has appeared on The Fifth Estate.

The problem

Solar photovoltaic power it is increasingly being installed on buildings but a major challenge is that it is difficult to store so that it can be delivered when needed.

Storing solar electricity as heat is useful because the world uses more than twice as much energy in the form of heat as electricity. So for solar power to become ubiquitous, it needs to be delivered as heat more than as electricity – and round the clock.

Liquid solar energy

The solution of researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden is a chemical liquid that can tranport solar energy and then release it as heat whenever it is needed. The research, described in March’s edition of Energy & Environmental Science, describes how the team came up with a way of copying the means by which plants store solar energy – in molecules.

Transforming it into bonds between atoms in a liquid chemical makes it possible to transport it as well as store it.

“The technique means that that we can store the solar energy in chemical bonds and release the energy as heat whenever we need it,” says Professor Kasper Moth-Poulsen, who is leading the research team.

“Combining the chemical energy storage with water heating solar panels enables a conversion of more than 80 per cent of the incoming sunlight.”

The research project has come a long way since it began six years ago when the solar energy conversion efficiency was 0.01 per cent and the expensive element ruthenium played a major role in the compound.

Four years later, the system stores 1.1 per cent of the incoming sunlight as latent chemical energy – an improvement of a factor of 100, and ruthenium has been replaced by much cheaper carbon-based elements.

“We saw an opportunity to develop molecules that make the process much more efficient,” Moth-Poulsen says.

“At the same time, we are demonstrating a robust system that can sustain more than 140 energy storage and release cycles with negligible degradation.”

The process is based on the organic compound norbornadiene, which upon exposure to light converts into quadricyclane.

Hybrid panels

The rooftops of buildings can take advantage of the benefits of installing both solar water heating and photovoltaic modules.

Typical efficiencies for photovoltaic modules are now at least 20 per cent. Solar water heating systems have an efficiency of between 20-80 per cent, depending on the application, location and the required temperature.

Solar water heating systems make use of the full solar spectrum, whereas photovoltaics can only harvest a much more limited proportion.

Some companies have used this difference to design hybrid panels which contain both solar water heating and photovoltaic cells, particularly since the water can be used to stop the photovoltaic panels overheating, making them more efficient. The downside is the expense.

The Swedish researchers think that one of the potential applications for their technology, when it has become more efficient, will be a new generation of hybrid panels that utilise the heat, which can be released from the liquid storage medium.

Concept diagram for the hybrid solar panels

They say that combining solar water heating with their system allows for efficient usage of low energy photons for solar water heating combined with storage of the high-energy photons in the form of chemical energy.

Their simulations have persuaded them that these hybrid panels could be up to 80 per cent efficient. In terms of energy density they are comparable to a lithium ion battery.

The team will continue work on the technology to evaluate the potential cost and bringing it down by finding a way to mass produce the constituent chemicals, and to find a non-toxic solvent.

More than a pinch of salt

A totally different technology is from Sunamp, a British company that has developed its technology by collaborating with the University of Edinburgh School of Chemistry. It guarantees low-cost materials, exceptional long life, recyclability, safety and high energy density.

The technology has been shortlisted for the 2017 Ashden UK Awards alongside the work of the Passivhaus Trust and the Carbon Co-op, a community benefit society that helps its members to retrofit their homes.

An engineer installing the solar salt battery.

Sunamp’s form of storage uses a salt as a phase change material. This absorbs and releases thermal energy during the process of melting and solidifying respectively.

Similar technology is used on a large scale with concentrating solar thermal power stations, typically located in hot, arid deserts.

In this case it is used for storing energy from photovoltaic panels, waste process heat, or heat from heat pumps and micro CHP (combined heat and power) systems, in order to increase efficiency.

How does it work? In the case of storing solar electrical energy, an electrical element connected to the solar panels heats up the salt, thereby melting it.

The salt is kept liquid in a vacuum-insulated container. When heat is required, cold water is passed through the liquid in a heat exchanger, absorbing the heat and causing the salt to re-solidify. The heated water passes to the tap and the salt is ready to be charged again.

Sunamp’s batteries come in various sizes and can be used in series, meaning they can be used in anything from small homes to large hotels, for example. They take up much less space than a hot water tank, can store heat for longer and are more efficient.

The battery can store heat at half the weight of hot water in a tank storing the same amount of energy. Whether they are cost-effective depends upon the location and pattern of usage.

The easy solution

Tenants moving into a new passive solar mini-housing estate in Wales – Pentre Solar, Glanrhyd, near Cardigan – have roofs covered with grid-connected solar panels and zero energy bills.

The brand new passive solar homes for affordable social housing, covered in solar panels.

Dr Glen Peters, CEO of Western Solar, which is behind the development, has an ambition for his company to supply 1,000 homes and to work with housing associations and local authorities to provide sustainable, solar-powered social housing.

The occupants of the estate have been given a Nissan Leaf electric car to use collectively, charged by the solar panels on the roofs. So that's one form of storage.

But the homes' heating is provided in a surprising manner, using the best of old technology with new: solar electricity and storage heaters.

An installed storage heater in a passive solar house; proven, old technology meeting the new.

Storage heaters contain thermally massive blocks which are heated up by an element. They then release that heat gradually over many subsequent hours.

This form of energy storage was introduced to British homes in the 1960s and '70s on a special tariff called Economy 7. Since nuclear power stations could not be switched off unlike other forms of electricity generation, these tariffs allowed people to use nuclear electricity at night – at a lower rate when national demand was low – to charge the storage heaters.

The problem was that by the time the heat was needed, the following evening, they were often too cool and many people subsequently removed them and installed central heating instead.

Here, the idea is to let the storage heaters be heated up during the day by the solar panels on the roof, meaning that they are able to provide adequate heating through the evening and night provided that there has been average sunshine (50% of a June summer day) during the day.

This may not be the case in the depths of winter and so the homes are also grid-connected. They export surplus energy when there is some – after the electric car and storage heaters have been topped up – and purchase it when not enough has been generated.

"Storage heaters are incredibly cheap," says Glen, "and a well proven technology. Whereas the storage we had to start with in our prototype house – lithium ion batteries – were designated a fire risk and we had them taken out. They are also much more expensive – a couple of hundred rather than thousands of pounds."

This sounds like a solar energy storage solution that deserves far wider application. Good luck to the other technologies, but if I was looking for energy storage for a house, I know which I would choose.

David Thorpe is the author of a number of books on energy efficiency, sustainable building and renewable energy, including The Expert Guide To Energy Management In Buildings and The Expert Guide to Solar Technology and The Earthscan Expert Guide to Retrofitting Homes for Efficiency. Find out more and buy the books here.

Could this solar power breakthrough kill off nuclear power?

New breakthroughs in solar technology have been announced which could mean a complete game changer in the way electricity is generated.

The technology involves printing a new type of solar cell onto building materials, such as steel and glass, and allowing them to generate electricity.

The chief announcement is the result of joint ventures between Australian company Dyesol and, in Wales, Tata Steel, and in America Pilkington Glass.

Researchers are being cautious as to the timescale, but it is estimated that in about five years time industrial production on a large scale could begin.

Speaking at a recent conference on solar power, James Durrant of the Department of Chemistry and Energy Futures Lab at Imperial College London, said “If just 10% of Tata's annual steel output were coated with DSSC, this would represent the output capacity equivalent to a 1GW nuclear power station per year".

Dye-sensitised solar cells (DSSC)

These 'dye-sensitised solar cells' (DSSC) employ a photoelectrochemical system similar to that employed by plants to capture solar energy.

In the manufacturing process, a nanocrystalline titanium oxide film plus a sensitiser dye are printed onto glass, polymer or steel and covered with glass or plastic.

Modules made from the cells currently have efficiencies up to 8% depending upon a compromise between stability and cost, but cells in the lab have reached 13% efficiency, and Dyesol is confident they can reach 10% under mass-production conditions in five years time.

DSSC has the following advantages over conventional silicon photovoltaic modules:

• it can output a constant operating voltage in all light conditions, including low light and dappled conditions typical of urban and city environments, making it an ideal renewable resource for closely packed buildings
• it has an optimum working temperature of 40o-50oC, unlike silicon PV, which becomes less efficient at higher temperatures
• it uses little energy in manufacture due to the low temperature processes and absence of high vacuum technology needed for second generation technologies (thin film PV)
• due to the nanoparticulate nature of the titanium dioxide, modules can generate electricity from light from any direction, removing the need for them to be pointed directly at the sun
• it can be produced in a range of natural colours and light transmission effects including transparent, translucent or opaque
• it uses no polluting dopant
• the ability to produce a constant operating voltage in all light conditions
• it is ideal for integrating into building cladding.

The race to mass production

Many companies are racing to produce this type of cell at an industrial scale.

Notable organic and dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) developers include, beside Dyesol: Eight19, EPFL, G24i, Heliotek, Konarka (printing large molecule polymers), Mitsubishi, Peccell, Plextronics, Solarmer, SolarPress and SolarPrint.

SolarPrint is also developing nanomaterials and processes to print the cells onto polymer substrates. Other researchers are experimenting with printing on fibreglass.

Eight19 Limited has raised $5 million from the Carbon Trust and Rhodia to develop plastic organic solar cells. The name "Eight19" refers to the time it takes sunlight to reach the earth.

The reason why Dyesol is a front-runner is because of its teamwork with Pilkington and Tata Steel. These joint ventures are already ahead of the game in terms of applying coatings on a continuous roll, as opposed to a batch process, output.

Existing coatings applied to steel include galvanising layers to prevent rust, colours, anti-static, and self cleaning layers, all of which are guaranteed for 40 years.

Tata's Rodney Rice, speaking from their DSSC Demonstration Roof at the PV Accelerator in Shotton, North Wales, where the process is being tested, told Energy and Environmental Management, "we use high speed large scale coating, on steel rolls 1.5m wide, put through at a speed of 200 metres per minute.

"This adds up to 200 million square metres of steel per annum, of which half ends up on buildings. If we assume 10 to 20% of this is on a roof or wall and the PV is operating at between 8 and 10% efficiency, then this will easily equate to 1 GW per year.

“We are developing our knowledge of printing coatings to printing the ability to generate electricity and to steel. It uses reasonably straightforward materials which are reliable, simple to apply and easy to scale up as there is no vacuum and fewer people involved.

"This means it has the perfect attributes for the mass-market and the technology will work well in northern Europe where there are large surface areas of roof tops."

The Dyesol-Tata partnership has obtained considerable support from the Welsh Government, and over the last four years has spent ￡11 million on R&D.

“Lowering the price is the objective and we are now developing processes that will allow us to do this in manufacture," continued Rodney.

"Initially steel rolls will be one metre wide with 10% efficiency leading to a production of 400 MW per year," he said.

Tata use coated steel and coated polymer electrodes, whereas Pilkington are using coated glass electrodes.

In America, the Pilkington-Tata joint venture has won $1 million from the Ohio Third Frontier Fund, and intends to complete its proof of concept project for large glass substrate panels by the summer of 2012.

Its chief competitor, American company Konarka’s technology, is a photo-reactive polymer material invented by Konarka co-founder and Nobel Prize winner, Dr. Alan Heeger.

This can be printed or coated inexpensively onto flexible substrates, again using roll-to-roll manufacturing.

It can work indoors too, capturing ambient light.

Like Dyesol, Konarka has recently entered a partnership agreement with a steel producer, ThyssenKrupp Steel Europe to develop solar steel roof, facades and other construction elements for building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) in Germany.

Dr. Lars Pfeiffer, head of quality and development at the Color/Construction unit. "Unlike conventional silicon-based photovoltaic systems, the joint solar solution will not need to be mounted on a raised structure but will integrate smoothly into the building envelope. We look forward to providing the valuable, added benefits of solar to our customers at a low cost."

Challenges

Some problems remain to be solved. For example, could it survive 25 years?

Rodney Rice says at the moment Tata can produce several square metres, and has installed a 15 m² demonstration roof can be used to test the output and performance.

“We are now developing our abilities in the process, durability, assembly and manufacturing," he said.

It is the dye which is crucial for the generation of the electricity from light. Different dyes are being researched all over the world.

“We are looking for the perfect dye," said Rodney. “The ability to capture light energy from a wide range of wavelengths is required in order to maximise efficiency. More than half research in world is looking at new dyes, extending wavelengths, including into the infrared," he said.

Dyesol is now ramping up more aggressive performance targets under a revised Technology Road Map, to achieve grid parity at an earlier date.

Whichever company is the first to successfully produce cladding for buildings which can cheaply produce electricity, will find themselves at the head of a multibillion dollar market.

Even supposing half of what these companies are claiming is hyperbole, then we are perhaps looking at a ten year timescale rather than five years before the technology reaches mass production.

Even so, this would be before the anticipated timescale for new nuclear power stations to come online. So, the big question is: would it obviate the need for new nuclear power by rendering it uncompetitive?

Thinking about the ease and convenience of producing, installing and using this technology at the point of use, it is clearly going to be a massive game changer.

The missing part of the jigsaw is still electricity storage, since, although this technology can produce energy at night time from indoor lighting, this will not meet peak demands.

This topic will be the subject of another special Low Carbon Kid technology report in 2012.

"Too Fast, Too Much" – solar PV industry in shock

The UK solar PV Industry is in shock due to the severity and speed of the Government’s proposed cuts to the Feed-in Tariff for the technology.

With talk of job losses and legal action, industry bosses are searching for a way to soften the expected impact of the sudden fall in tariffs and the timescale.

Dave Sowden, Chief Executive of the Micropower Council, said: “Within four hours of these proposals being announced, we received our first phone call of a company starting a statutory consultation with staff over impending redundancies."

Most stakeholders understand the Government's dilemma, caused by the rush of PV installations rapidly depleting the extent of the £867 million fund.

There were over 16,000 new solar PV installations in September alone – nearly double the number installed in June.

“But these proposals go much too far," Sowden warned. "Under these proposals solar panels will simply become “eco-bling” for the middle classes, paid for by all, including the fuel poor.

"Yet those on lower incomes will no longer be able to benefit from offerings such as free solar or social housing schemes, due to the financiers of these schemes pulling out.

“The speed of the changes will also leave many companies with stranded assets, a plethora of contractual disputes."

A protest by the industry and supporters is being planned at Downing Street for 23 November to lobby for more modest reductions in the tariff and a less drastic timescale.

The Cut Don't Kill campaign has warned that such deep cuts would "kill the UK solar industry stone dead".

Industry veteran Jeremy Leggett, chairman of Solarcentury, warned that 25,000 jobs could go in one of the country’s few growth industries.

“There is not even any recognition that the industry will need some time to adjust to such a change,” he said.

He said he believed that the timing of the change makes it “wide open to legal challenge and we now expect a very serious industry challenge to be mounted”.

Daniel Green, chief executive of HomeSun, an installer of 4,000 solar systems, said in despair, “There is no business left, it is finished. It just doesn’t pay for consumers to do it now.”

The Government's consultation on reducing the tariffs states that from 1 April 2012 the tariff payable to retrofitted residential solar installations will be cut from the current 43.3p/kWh to 21p/kWh.

The tariff then reduces rapidly as the size of the installation rises.

In a blow to the social sector, used by housing associations and local authorities to put panels on their stock, “aggregated” schemes such as social housing and “free solar” will have an even lower tariff – 16.8p/kWh.

However, Greg Barker did say in the House of Commons that the Government is considering "whether more could be done to enable genuine community projects to be able to fully benefit from FITs", as the current scheme cannot identify a community project.

Because the proposals make no change to tariffs for projects installed by 12 December, which will receive the current rates for 25 years, a rush has begun to finish any projects now in progress before this date.

According to the consultation the 21p tariff would yield a rate of return to private individuals of 4.5%, presently higher than most savings accounts, but perhaps not so for 25 years.

The consultation has two phases. The first relates to changes to the tariffs.

A second one is expected before the end of the year and will cover all other aspects of the scheme, including the tariffs for other FIT technologies, adding to the sense of panic felt throughout the sector.

The Government is defending its line by arguing that the cost of an average domestic PV installation has fallen by at least 30% since the start of the scheme – from around £13,000 in April 2010 to £9,000 now.

It says that at this rate, without changing the tariffs, the cost to all electricity bill payers by 2014-15 would be "£980 million a year, adding around £26 (2010 prices) to annual domestic electricity bills in 2020".

The revised tariffs would limit the cost to £250-280 million in 2014-15, making domestic electricity bills around £23 (2010 prices) higher in 2020.

The Government now wants all PV installations from 1 April 2012 to come with energy efficiency makeovers for the property concerned.

As for the level of efficiency required, the proposals are for either an Energy Performance Certificate level of C, or the taking up of all measures potentially eligible for Green Deal finance.

If the building did not meet the energy efficiency requirement the installation would receive a lower FITs rate of 9p/kWh.

Energy Minister Greg Barker said, "This new requirement will encourage the industry to make the most of their skills and expertise and work much more closely with the rapidly expanding energy efficiency market".

Some suppliers such as Sharp Solar say they are already mobilising to offer this service to customers.

In a rowdy Parliament debate yesterday, Caroline Flint, shadow energy secretary, accused the Government of delivering a “kick in the teeth for those families who wanted to do the right thing by investing in solar.

"The new proposals guarantee that lower-income households will lose out, as fewer firms offer the lifetime deals that are currently available, and that solar will be available only to the well-off."

She asked why, if costs have fallen by 30%, the tariffs are being cut by 50%, and observed that so far the UK "has installed only 3% of the solar energy installed in Germany in the past two years".

Barker defended the 12 December cut-off date by saying that otherwise "there would be a massive gold-rush, and the entire budget for feed-in tariffs would be gone" by April 2012.

Renewable energy now yields irresistible returns on investment for all businesses

Whatever kind of business you are running, you would be crazy not to take a serious look at using renewable energy - not just to satisfy your own power needs but as a sound financial investment. But you need to get the best, expert advice and think strategically.

The return on a sensible investment in renewable technology would average 11-12%, with the potential for returns of over 20%, according to a report from Carbon Trust Advisory released this week.

With much of the rest of the economy in the doldrums, and energy prices set to rise considerably, where else are you going to get a return like this?

The financial landscape is improving due to Government initiatives such as the Feed-in-Tariffs (FiT) for generating renewable electricity and the similar Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) - which covers technologies such as solar water heating, heat pumps and biomass boilers.

This is due to kick in at the end of this month for businesses (a similar scheme for homes will follow next summer).

The big names are already leading the way. ASDA, IKEA, John Lewis and Marks & Spencer have all set a target of moving to 100% renewable energy. IKEA now obtains 80% of its total energy use from renewables and has invested in a mix of ground source heat pumps, biomass, solar panels and wind power.

In the US. Google has invested heavily in solar plants, with a 1.65 megawatt photovoltaic power array installed in 2007. But it has learnt that you can't just buy a renewable energy plant and then forget about it.

At the beginning, it failed to put in monitoring and maintenance facilities for each array that would clean the panels regularly and tell it when failures had occurred. A couple of years later it took a look and discovered in this survey that at any one time, the plant may be only generating 70%, and sometimes as little as half, of its potential.

Factors such as accidents, power and frequency matching, shading, potential annual degradation of cells by .5% to 9.5% a year can all affect a photovoltaic system's output.

Similar technical complications arise from all energy technologies, and few can simply be plugged in, switched on and forgotten about in the way that we rely upon the grid.

While The Carbon Trust is right to push the fact that "anaerobic digestion (AD), wind power, biomass heating systems and ground source heat pumps are some of the most attractive and practical renewable energy technologies for UK businesses", businesses need expert help, not just in choosing the right technology for their location but in designing an entire energy management approach that finds the most cost-effective interventions they can make for their particular circumstance.

Investing in demand reduction, energy efficiency, or voltage optimisation, for example, might create just as profitable returns and improvements to the bottom line.

The Carbon Trust can also advise whether a company should purchase or directly generate its own renewable energy, whether to do so on or offsite, where to find the expertise and the implications for an organisation’s supply chain.

UK’s largest renewable gas project

The Carbon Trust suggests that AD (selling the biomethane produced to the gas network) and biomass boilers, typically will offer the highest average internal rate of return.

Biomethane from anaerobic digestion is going to be in hot demand - it may comprise at least 15% of the domestic gas supply by 2020, according to a study by British Gas and the National Grid.

This week British Gas and AD plant manufacturer Bio Group led the way in this area with a joint project to build a £5m anaerobic digestion plant in Stockport to take advantage of the RHI. It will produce organic fertiliser and biomethane which, once upgraded to match the quality of natural gas, will be fed into the gas network.

The feedstock will include food waste from local hotels, restaurants and British Gas’ own offices. It will be constructed on an old landfill site in Stockport, Greater Manchester and will open in April 2012 when it will be capable of supplying 1,400 homes each year.

British Gas and Bio Group, with the Renewable Energy Association, helped to launch a scheme earlier this year called the Green Gas Certification Scheme (GGCS), that provides assurance to customers of British Gas' renewable gas tariff of the biomethane's authenticity as a renewable energy source.

Although complex, the renewable energy field is rapidly becoming easier to enter and more and more mainstream. And with energy prices set to grow by up to 37% by 2020, the opportunity to reduce bills is a strong incentive for all businesses to investigate renewable energy options.

Any business wishing to enquire about the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) should phone the accreditation enquiries line 0845 200 2122 between 8:30am until 5pm Monday to Thursday, and 8:30am until 4:30pm on Fridays or email RHI.Enquiry@Ofgem.gov.uk.

The large-scale solar gold rush draws to an end

The installed capacity of photovoltaic solar power in the UK doubled in the three months to June in the rush to complete projects before the reduction in Feed-on Tariffs by Monday August 1.

The tariff will drop from 29.3p per kWh to 8.5p per kWh on Monday and solar plant developers have just the rest of this weekend to complete large projects in order to benefit from higher tariffs.

Statistics released by DECC show that there was a 56% rise to 121.6 megawatts (MW) between March and June and 18 times more capacity than a year previously.

Installed capacity for anaerobic digestion also jumped in the second quarter of this year, nearly trebling to 177 kW

But this is expected to increase rather than fall, as Feed-In Tariffs for this technology, which composts organic matter to produce fertiliser and methane that can be burnt to generate electricity, will rise from August 1, by around 2 pence per kilowatt-hour for plants up to 250kW.

The largest single solar installation to meet the deadline is on the Body Shop's head office site in Watersmead, Sussex.

It consists of 3,840 solar modules over 6,355 sq meters (roughly the size of 24 tennis courts) estimated to generate approximately 900,000 kWh of electricity a year - 25% of the site’s energy. It is about equivalent to powering the needs of 250 houses.

The Body Shop says it took just nine weeks to install, cost £2.8 million and has a payback of 7-8 years with the higher tariff rate.

Paul McGreevy, The Body Shop International Director of Values, said that “while we understand the need to prevent commercial exploitation of the Feed-In Tariffs, we are disappointed that large, self-funded scale installations like The Body Shop's, entirely in keeping with the original intention of the initiative, have now reduced considerably in size, postponed or abandoned due to the increased investment."

Hw said he hoped the government would look at the situation again and extend the current Tariff, "or at least consider different methodologies to assess the installations to make it more viable" in order to help bring down the cost of solar modules.

Two other large projects to meet the deadline are in the sunniest part of the UK: Cornwall.

Lightsource Renewable Energy and Solarcentury have helped to build a 1.4 MW solar plant near Truro on a disused tin mine, the first of many renewable projects planned at the site.

"While it's been disappointing the government has decided not to support the large-scale solar sector going forward, the solar farms developed this summer will play a critical role in the supply of green energy in the UK," said Conor McGuigan, head of planning at Lightsource.

Another 1.35 MW plant nearby, that cost around £4m, was erected in just six weeks and is expected to attract up to £1bn to the Cornwall area.

The tariff reduction has not stopped a Cornish charity from yesterday launching a £20 million fund sourced from local PV installers to help community buildings, academy schools, churches, charities and farmers generate their own renewable energy from roof-mounted PV modules.

Community Energy Plus' ‘Solar Communities 2011’ was launched at the Cornwall Renewable Energy Show.

The installations will crucially be under 50 kW, so continuing to attract the highest tariff, but unlike other ‘rent a roof schemes’ will also receive an income from any electricity not used within the building that is exported to the National Grid.

If the maximum 50kW were to be installed, this would mean that building owners could save up to £7,000 a year on bills by using all of the electricity, or receive up to £2,400 a year for exporting it all to the National Grid.

Over 300 local organisations are expected to take up the offer before the deadline of the 1st April 2012.

Cornish Social Enterprises like this one are experiencing a boom. The Royal Bank of Scotland’s new list of the top 100 fastest growing Social Enterprises in the UK contains several from the region, including ReZolve and the Cornwall Sustainable Tourism Project.

The RBS SE100 Index is produced by the Royal Bank of Scotland and Social Enterprise to build intelligence and monitor performances of social enterprises in the UK.

Microgeneration Strategy published - but will it over-achieve?

The government's new strategy envisages the ideal cost of installing renewable microgeneration technologies to move to around £5-6,000 with a payback period of around five years so that millions of householders take it up. But it's worried that if its strategy is a success, then its support schemes may run out of money.

Its new Microgeneration Strategy and Action Plan for England, published yesterday, aims to remove non-financial barriers to the spread of these technologies, and calls for more demonstration homes, which are known to be the best way to promote uptake, and for industry, local authorities and government bodies to work together.

But the Government is worried about the scheme becoming a victim of its own success. Its accompanying impact assessment warns that implementing the strategy "could encourage greater uptake than we have projected" which ″could drive up subsidy costs of the schemes".

As a result it promises to keep tight watch on levels of uptake given that more funding would not be available over and above the ｣15 million allocated to the Renewable Heat Premium Payments, ｣850 million funding for the Renewable Heat Incentive or the ｣610 million a year for FITs.

Launching the strategy and action plan, Greg Barker said, "The onus is on the industry itself to make the most of the opportunities presented by the financial incentives - supported by Government action to streamline regulation such as planning and standards, while at the same time ensuring consumers are protected."

As an example of what could be done, the Government proposes that information on financial incentives could be included in Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) to stimulate take-up of renewables. Market research by Consumer Focus has shown that more people would take up renewable energy in their homes if this was included at the point of property sale or rental as part of the green deal advice process.

An army of skilled workers will be required to meet the demand but accreditation needs to be standardised. A survey is to be undertaken of all training schemes to recommend what's needed to create the competent installers of tomorrow to be completed by October 2012.

Industry must do its bit as well, including analysing the whole product life-cycle for each microgeneration technology to pinpoint where things could go wrong in advance and bolster customer confidence. It should do more to market the concept of microgeneration and the potential benefits to consumers with independent source of advice by September this year, and produce a guide on warranties and insurance schemes for customers and factsheets for each technology with information on maintenance and the longevity of key components, by April next year.

Micro-hydro will be removed from the Microgeneration Certification Scheme for the purpose of Feed-In Tariff eligibility to make it easier for customers to find an appropriate installer. Schemes under 50kW are already rigorously regulated under environmental and planning consenting requirements. The Chief Executive of the British Hydropower Association, David Williams, called this "a great relief".

Importantly, the strategy recognises also the value of heat pumps, micro-CHP and, into the future, compressors and absorption chillers which could provide solar-powered cooling.

Wood fuel is also considered vital and the Government is developing a Bio-energy Strategy for publication later this year, which will set out the government's strategic direction for bio-energy to 2020 and beyond.

Building Regulations and the Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) will also be amended to better quantify the benefit of including renewables in developments.

Government and industry will work together to explore opportunities to expand the microgeneration sector by working with European level initiatives. This includes, for example, Smart Cities, which launched on 21 June, and addresses technologies, local production and energy networks, including electricity, heating and cooling.

Launching the initiative, Energy Gnther Oettinger said: "With an 80 million Euro package we plan to demonstrate smart integration of urban energy technologies in selected pilot cities. This will kick-start important new markets for European industry. Cities are key to the EU's objectives of 20% energy saving by 2020 and to developing a low carbon economy by 2050, because 70% of the EU's energy consumption takes place in cities." Manchester is the English city taking the lead in this imaginative scheme.

Community energy

Connected with this, the Government wants to encourage more communities to take up district level renewable energy schemes that would be owned by the communities themselves.

Currently there are many barriers forming an uphill battle to communities that wish to do this, such as lack of knowledge about planning, local awareness, skills, time and access to finance. DECC has pledged to do more to address these issues with a stakeholder group to be set up next month, including developing the Community Energy Online web portal and engaging in collective purchasing of renewable energy in order to get a better deal.

The latter opportunity was identified earlier this year in a BIS proposal, Better Choices: Better Deals. It cites the pioneering example of Barnet in achieving this and, in fact, many of the initiatives set out in the microgeneration strategy.

Good Energy in particular has welcomed the recognition in the strategy that community energy projects come in all shapes and sizes and could be as large as 20MW in capacity, and that the Government is committed to a wider distributed energy strategy as part of its Electricity Market Reform.

Microgeneration may be eligible for £10,000 Green Deal support

The Green Deal, the Government's flagship scheme for giving buildings £10,000 of energy-saving improvements, will include microgeneration technologies like heat pumps and solar power.

Climate Change Minister Greg Barker has published further details of how the Green Deal scheme will work, with a draft list of measures that the scheme will permit to be financed; a Green Deal Code to protect consumers; and details of the new Energy Company Obligation (ECO) to tackle fuel poverty.

Businesses as well as householders will be able to access up to £10,000 upfront to pay for energy efficiency work, repaying the costs through savings on energy bills from next year.

Consumers will get BSI quality assurance from a Green Deal Code of Practice which will cover providers and installers, and a Green Deal advice line will be set up.

The principle of the Green Deal is being called The Golden Rule, under which expected savings from measures will repay the costs over 20-25 years. The cost-benefit levels for each measure are still being calculated.

Consumer groups are welcoming the proposals. Audrey Gallacher, head of energy at Consumer Focus, said: "Particularly welcome moves are the introduction of an independent advice line and more robust complaints handling and redress measures. This should not only help consumers make informed decisions on products and services, but mean support is there if things go wrong.

"The Green Deal will be sold through a spread of providers from energy companies to DIY chains."

Confirming what I've observed myself before, Richard Lloyd, CEO of Which?, cautioned that: "Our latest research into cavity wall insulation uncovered inadequate inspections and poor advice. For this scheme to be a success, Green Deal assessors need to be held to the highest standards. £10,000 represents a major investment for most people, so the Government must ensure that the financing of the scheme is fair and good value for customers."

The £10,000 is not to be seen as a cap, however.

"Central to the scheme is the fact the repayments have to be lower than energy savings," said a DECC spokeswoman. "As long as the likely savings from a package of measures are more than the costs, the project will be financed. There is no cap."

This is great news for the most energy-inefficient buildings, for example in the rented sector, which could benefit from a host of much-needed measures.

The eligible measures

An industry-wide Call for Evidence and Literature Review on the costs and benefits of a range of measures was issued in March 2011, and the results are not yet in, so the published list is indicative only, but it includes the following:

• Heating, ventilation and air conditioning: Condensing boilers; Heating controls; Under-floor heating; Heat recovery systems; Mechanical ventilation (non-domestic); Flue gas recovery devices


• Building fabric: Cavity wall insulation; Loft insulation; Flat roof insulation; Internal wall insulation; External wall insulation; Draught proofing; Floor insulation; Heating system insulation (cylinder, pipes); Energy efficient glazing and doors


• Lighting: Lighting fittings; Lighting controls


• Water heating: Innovative hot water systems; Water efficient taps and showers


• Microgeneration: Ground and air source heat pumps; Solar thermal; Solar PV; Biomass boilers; Micro-CHP.

When making an inspection of a building, Green Deal Assessors will draw from this list of eligible measures to make property-specific recommendations.

The assessor will then work out whether the estimated annual saving is expected to be equal to or greater than the expected annual repayment costs. If it is, then the work can go ahead.

Certain measures could have an extra upfront subsidy - via the Energy Company Obligation. Alternatively a householder could choose to pay a top-up to bring down the repayment cost.

As an example, the documents cite that external wall insulation could pay for itself in 30 years based on an installation cost of £7,600. With a subsidy, the repayment period could be significantly reduced and brought within usual finance periods of 20 to 25 years.

The list has been welcomed by the industry. "It's encouraging to have as wide a list of technologies as possible included," said John Alker of the Green Building Council.

He added that as the scheme allows people to top up the Green Deal financing with their own money, and includes microgeneration technologies, this would encourage them to invest in upgrades.

Friends of the Earth's Dave Powell commented that adding microgeneration technologies to the Deal could make it more attractive, but it might reduce the amount of money available for insulation and draughtproofing, which is always more cost-effective.

The Government has realised that often it only makes sense to install a measure while other renovations are occurring, such as under-floor heating, or to add an additional measure to a package, such as installing heating controls when fitting an upgraded boiler. Further guidance will therefore detail the effects of sequencing.

It is not yet clear how, if the Green Deal will cover microgeneration, it will fit in with the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) - kicking in at the same time for domestic properties - and Feed-in Tariffs (FITs) for renewable electricity.

The Energy Company Obligation

The ECO will make sure that cases will still receive attention where the Golden Rule will not work but where energy efficiency improvements are needed.

For these cases, it will mandate energy service companies and utilities to meet the needs of the lower income and most vulnerable first, followed in priority by those properties needing the next most cost-effective measures that do not meet the Golden Rule for example, solid wall insulation (SWI).

This is intended to boost the supply chain for SWI, which is still relatively small, and bring prices down, which will help the measure meet the Golden Rule.

The ECO's funding 'pot' is expected to provide between £1bn and £2bn a year, but will inevitably result in higher general fuel prices.

ECO support is intended to be integrated into the Green Deal framework so that where they combine to deliver improvements, the consumer will just see one seamless package on offer from a Green Deal provider.

Suppliers and Green Deal providers will therefore need to work together to provide an offer to the consumer that comprises the optimum mix of support between Green Deal finance and ECO subsidy.

Feed-in Tariffs review: let’s subsidise what works

The Government has announced a review of the Feed-in Tariff subsidies (FITs) for solar photovoltaic installations.

Energy Minister Chris Huhne is worried that large PV 'farms' of over 50kWp will soak up most of the budget for FITs. The Government said it would cut the amount it would spend on FITs up to 2014-15 by 10% to £360 million in the November Spending Review.

The industry is crying 'foul'. It complains that other technologies are allowed up to 5MW per installation and that no solar farms greater than 1MW are in planning. It accuses the Government of attacking jobs in the very green tech sector it says is going to bring growth to the UK economy.

But it's worth asking: what are the subsidies for? Here are a few possible answers:

1. Huhne talks of making renewable technology seem normal by being visible on lots of roofs.

2. It's said that households with the modules become more conscious of green issues and energy efficiency.

3. By increasing demand, the price of modules is supposed to come down over time.

4. It creates jobs in an emerging sector.

5. It cuts carbon emissions.

But do these stand up to scrutiny and represent value for money?

FITs are a fantastic success, particularly for PV, in stimulating demand for renewable energy among the public. There are now over 21,000 schemes of all technologies registered.

Up to the end of December, when there were 16,384 installations, PV had the vast majority with 15,236 - over 15 times more than wind in second place with 977 with hydro lagging at 154.

Are these large PV schemes? No. By the end of last year there was only one over the 50kW size, at 55kW. The vast majority were under 4kW with the average at 2.6kW. Most of these will be receiving the full tariff value of 41.3p per unit.

On the other hand almost all the hydro and wind installations were over 4kW, many over 10kW. Most of these will be receiving only 26.7p per unit.

By contrast, if PV farms were to register for the Renewables Obligation subsidy - an older, different subsidy for larger schemes - they would receive payments of around 8p/kWh plus export payments of 5p/kWh (though this is to be reviewed).

So PV receives almost twice as much under FITs as wind and other technologies. You can see why it is so popular. But is it value for money?

Let's remember that the installed capacity of PV doesn't equate to what will be generated: this depends on the location - the amount of sunshine.

Solar module manufacturers quote figures for the “peak power” of their products. These are what they would generate if one kilowatt per square metre of the sun’s energy were to fall on them.

But for most of England and Wales, the summer insolation is a fraction of that figure. London gets 198W and Edinburgh 172W in July. In December, the figures are 22 and 13 respectively - a lot less - and that’s when you need more power.

By contrast, wind and hydro ratings are significantly closer to what you actually get out of the plant.

So if you're looking for saving the most carbon per £, these technologies are a better choice for support.

But let's remember also who pays for the subsidies. The money comes off a levy on everyone's electricity bills. This means we all help pay the income of those who can afford to install the solar modules.

Since those on low incomes pay a disproportionate amount of their income on fuel, they are essentially subsidising the better-off.

On that basis the Government is right to prevent this subsidy going to large landowners and companies seeking to install solar farms.

Instead, it should support installations by such groups as housing associations like the Peabody Trust, who are putting PVs on the roofs of social housing.

(However it is cheaper to build larger installations than smaller ones – because savings on overheads and systems mean costs are reduced per kW. So these would make financial sense if the cash came instead from investors.)

In America this week, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced that he wants to spend $27 million to cut the cost of installed solar power by 75 percent to about 6 cents per kilowatt hour in order to let the US compete with China's takeover of the solar market.

Fine for them - the southern states are where solar power works brilliantly. By contrast, even in the UK's southernmost counties, the financial paybacks are 30-50 years - all costs included.

What the UK is rich in are wind and ocean resources. If it wants to generate future jobs and save carbon, with renewable technologies that can work domestically and be exported throughout the world, it should focus its limited resources on these.

Germany's feed-in tarriffs supporting PV

Germany's recently approved "climate package" is its latest step in securing the country's position as a leading investment location in renewable energies.

What is needed in the UK is a similar package of measures to guarantee a strong future for investors in renewable energies.

"The reforms maintain attractive feed-in tariffs and strengthen the legal framework for energy-efficiency investments, therefore adding to Germany's already inviting investment conditions in photovoltaic (PV) energy," says David Wortmann, Director of the Renewable Energies and Resources team at Invest in Germany.

One of the main drivers of PV investment in Germany is the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG in German). The EEG requires power companies to buy renewable energy from owners of renewable energy installations at a rate that is above the standard retail price.

The "feed-in-tariff" for PV projects beginning in 2008 stands at 35.49 - 51.75 EUR cents/KWh. The rate is guaranteed for 20 years. There is also no limit to the energy that can be sold into the grid at the EEG rates. This legal framework encourages Germans to invest in PV products, creating a long-term and sustainable domestic market.

Germany is turning its renowned scientific expertise into an asset for the solar industry. There are over 80 different academic degree options in solar energy and energy management at German universities, including a new Masters Degree program at Berlin's Technical University (TU).

An "energy university" will soon open in Berlin to offer graduate-level students from all over the world the chance to improve their knowledge of the energy industry. This qualified workforce contributes to Germany's high standard of quality in its PV products and also to its comparatively low product failure rate.

This expertise is found not only in universities, but also in the many research institutions in Germany that cooperate closely with PV investors.

For example, the Fraunhofer ISE is part of the internationally renowned Fraunhofer Society that is one of numerous research institutes and universities doing research on the latest technologies in PV, often in cooperation with the solar industry.

Supportive laws, qualified employees, and access to researchers and suppliers are some of the reasons that leading PV companies such as First Solar, Arise Technologies, Signet Solar, and recent entries like Intico Solar and Masdar PV GmbH have invested in Germany.

More will be revealed at the 23rd European Photovoltaic Solar Energy Conference and Exhibition (PVSEC), September 1 - 5, 2008 in Valencia, Spain.

If only it could happen in the UK.

Thinking about installing solar electricity?

Thinking about installing solar electricity? Then learn from others' mistakes!

The results of field trials and lessons from 500 real-life systems in the UK over seven years are now available online from the Large-scale and Domestic PV Field Trials programme.

They have been grouped together for ease of use on aspects of design, installation, commissioning and operation.

The pie-diagram is the result of a survey of users' feelings about their PV installations!

Other useful Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR) technology sites

> Renewables website
> Sustainable Technologies
> Technology Programme
> Technology Strategy Board
[What a shame that Gordon and Malcolm don't pay any attention to them]

Google goes solar

Now you can search with a green conscience:
Google Powers Up 1.6 MW Solar System & Hybrid Initiative.

But it doesn't say how much electricity Google actually uses.