By Alicia Lafuente

According to the Eurobaromenter Attitudes of European citizens towards the environment, published this month, climate change is the first environmental concern of Europeans, mentioned by 57% of the participants in the survey. However, not always this concern is translated into appropriate behaviours in this sense. Many times, this is due to the lack of information or alternatives; many others, to the perception that commitment means a sacrifice. Nevertheless, there are a big variety of possibilities that don’t involve renounce.

In the fight against climate change, energy management is a key issue. The first piece, without doubts, is to reduce our energy consumption, through energy saving and energy efficiency measures. But the second step consists in basing our energy generation on greenhouse effect gasses emission free forms, as for example the photovoltaic energy. In this case, as in many others, what counts it’s the sum of actions, and in concrete, what we propose is to share the sun, putting together efforts to realize joint initiatives, and, in addition, in a profitable way: the jointly owned grid connected PV plants.

For more info, visit www.desolasol.org

By María de Pablo

Both at European and at World level, Germany is the reference country in the photovoltaic market. Its solid regulatory framework has been the key factor of the PV development, having favoured a confidence ambience for investors, which has meant a growth of the installed power. According to the German Solar Industry Association (BSW), 130,000 new installations, 1,100 MWp in total, were connected to the grid in 2007. In global, there is an installed power of 3.8 GWp in 430,000 installations.

German legislation forces electric companies to purchase the electricity of PV origin with feed in tariff for a period of 20 years. The tariff is higher for smaller installed power (installations smaller than 30 kWp), if it’s roof based and with an extra bonus if the façade integration is complete.

The objective is to promote grid connection of particular installations, and in fact 40% of the German market consists of installations smaller than 10 kWp on particular houses’ roofs. Only 10% of the market consists on big fixed installations on ground, with an average power of 2 MWp and panel technologies less efficient but more economic, as thin film. Around 50% of the installed power in Germany is in installations of 10 to 1,000 kWp. In this market sector, share-owned installations were developed, typically on public buildings roofs in urban areas, and using efficient technologies (crystalline cellules). This investments are articulated around limited societies of shared ownership with a minimum investment of around 1,500 €.

Following the German wake, in Spain since 2004 numerous share-owned grid-connected PV plants were installed. This installations are perceived by society as a profitable economic investment, with a social and environment-friendly component. A typical PV plant consists of several installations of 100 kWp integrated into an only project of 1.5 to 2 MWp, although currently the installed power is growing. PV plants are installed on ground , on fixed structures or trackers. The legislation in force doesn’t favour building integrated PV plants, contrary to the draft of the new decree which is in agreement to other European legislations.

This configuration of independent 100 kWp installations has its origin in the current and the precedent laws, RD 661/2007 and RD 436/2004, which establish a preferential tariff regime for installations up to that nominal power. Thus, there are two propriety models: through several investors limited companies which own 100 kWp and the right of grid connection or through physic persons which buy installations of around 5 kWp. In this second case, the modules and inverter belong to the particular, but the transformer property is shared with other users. In both cases, the evacuation infrastructures are shared. The minimum installed power is about 5 kWp, thus the minimum investment is higher that in the German case.

The PV take off in France has been slower than in the other cases (in 2005 the total installed power was 7 MWp, a hundredth of that installed in Germany). PV promotion has always been present in France, but not citizen-focused but promoting big installations in overseas territory. Nevertheless, the new subsidy mechanism with feed in tariffs for 20 years makes it attractive also in the continental France. A typical PV plant in France is a roof integrated grid connected installation, of around 2 kWp. French tariff is higher for building integrated PV plants, and in the future the key question will be to define which are the conditions to reach that status. This measure is against the interests of big plants on ground, which receive a smaller retribution. There are in France a few installations of around several hundreds of kWp, but only one big installation of 1MWp (Reunion Island, Pacific Ocean).

Compared to Spain, the PV development in Portugal is scarce, taking into account that both have privileged climate conditions for this technology. However, last November Portugal approved a new decree to promote micro generation using renewable energy sources, which could be the needed tool for the PV development. The new law foresees that the produced electricity should be used for self-consumption, giving the possibility of selling the surplus to third parties or the public network.

The legislation establishes a tariff for 15 years, up to 3,68 kWp power (measured on the inverter). It seems that the possible share-owned PV plants in Portugal will be groups of 3,68 kWp installations, owned by a group, as a neighbours community, for example.

As a comparative on share-owned PV plants among these countries is complicated, due to the diverse law development, we can conclude that the current moment is promising and synergies and know how of pioneer countries such as Germany and Spain can be transmitted to other European Southern Countries, both the mentioned France and Portugal, but also Italy, Greece, etc.

By Cristina Daniel

Portugal has exceptional conditions for the production of PV electrical energy. Although from the North to the South, there are optimal conditions for the implementation of PV installations, the regions on the inside of the country are privileged by the slightly induced clouding that happens in the coastal regions because of the sea. The southern inner regions (inner Alentejo), are the best places for the installation of big PV investments, because of their climatic characteristics, very similar to the ones of the desert regions.

Every time there are legal conditions adequate for this economical activity, the Portuguese market reacts almost explosively, and therefore its contention is determined above all by legal impositions that establish production shares for the big producers and, more recently for the micro producers. Besides the shares, it was established a set of restrictions that condition the raising of this kind of energy production.

On the other hand, the recent legislation concerning the micro producer statute is a strong contribute for the appearance of this new actor in the energy market, by the simplicity of the processes that it is introducing in the licensing process of the installation.

The Portuguese government established, for 2010, the objective of 150 MW in solar PV energy. In 2005, 128 MW were already contracted, since then the attribution of more power for grid connection is “frozen” due to the huge number of requests registered meanwhile.
With the new micro producer statute, they were kept 50 MW to give to PV micro generation installations to implementing in households, commercial, services or industrial buildings.

Presently the market is dominated by the big production structures. The example is the 14,5 MW installed in Portugal, 11 MW attributed to the PV plant in Serpa (76% of total).

Concerning the jointly owned PV plants, it is quite difficult to point out examples in Portugal, as there are only a few small grid connected projects, not exactly following the core idea of the deSolaSol project and with very little available information:

- The “Solar Energy in Schools” project (2004), in the Municipality of Moura (Alentejo) implemented grid-connected PV systems in three schools, with installed power of 15, 25 and 35 kWp;
- The S. Brás PV plant, in Barcelinhos (North), an independent 4,96 kWp system connected to the low voltage grid;
- The PV plant of Alqueva, an independent 65 kWp system connected to the low voltage grid.

The PV plant of Alqueva (picture 1), located in Alentejo, is the only project for which it was possible to obtain adequate information, gently delivered by EDIA, S.A., the project developer and owner.

The entity responsible for the installation is Consortium SIEMENS / Pinto & Bentes and the usefull area for conversion is 449 m2. This project, with a total investment of 389 403,24 €, is settled on rural land, using tracker system, with a nominal power rate of 65 kW and grid connected in low voltage.

Referring to the equipment, the pannels are manufactured by Shellsolar, made of monochrystaline silicon cells, with a nominal power of 175 Wp per pannel, with inverters made by SolarMax, with nominal power of 5,1 kW and 1 axled trackers, manufactured by Lorentz.

The average data for the yearly production is 100 MWh, with a performance ratio of 13,6 % and 0,022 €/Wp as cost of maintenance.

The construction of this plant was subcontracted and the maintenance, security, surveillance and monitoring is guaranteed by the company’s own resources.

PV plant of Alqueva (Source: Piero Dal Maso, in Serpa Solar Plant)

By Angela Saade

Energies Partagées

Energies Partagées, which means shared energies in French, is an SME situated in the west of France, in the Maine Et Loire department. It was created following a will of investors to set up a jointly owned PV system on a public owned roof. Since the 24th of august 2007, the 8,4 kW system, set up on the roof of social centre of Chemillé, is connected to the grid and sell energy with the feed-in tariff system.

The legal statute of the society is “SARL: Société Anonyme à Responsabilité Limitée” with the “SCIC: Société Coopérative d'Intérêt Collectif” agreement. The advantages of having a SCIC agreement are:
- To allow public and private investment in a same structure.
- To have a democratic operation (The influence of a person on the activities of the society does not depend of the capital invested, 1 person = 1 vote).
- To limit the lucrative aspect: 57,3% of the benefits is conserved and undividable.

With the choices of having a SCIC agreement and the use of a public roof for the installation, Energies Partagées wanted to set up a real citizen project model where the public authorities jointly with private investors of the region, build up a unique sustainable project.
To be co-financer of the system, a private investor has to buy a share (or several ones) in the society. The value is fixed to 100 €. Until now, “energies partagées” has 90 associates; 3 of them are city halls.

The “Energies Partagées” project is one of the first real jointly owned PV system in France and is a concrete example of a possible citizen engagement towards the development of the renewable energies.

Economically, this project seems to be globally interesting but we have to take into consideration that he have beneficiated of 50% of subsidies, which is a high percentage and is generally not the case for French projects. However, the choice of fixing the price of the part at 100 € shows that the real motivation is not an economical one.

Web site: www.energiespartagees.org

By Alicia Lafuente
In Spain during the last years there has been an important growth of the number of PV installations, generally as big PV plants on ground, specially due to the retributive politics established during the last years, together with an abundant solar resource. However, this development has been done in an uncontrolled way, and an adequate planification and a stable legal framework are needed to allow this growth to continue.

At the moment, the national PV objectives established in the legislation in force, RD 661/07, were of 371 MWp, but at the end of 2007, 569 MWp had been already installed, according to provisional data of the CNE.

When the limit of 85% was reached, the Industry Ministery presented a draft of the new law which would be in force after September 2008. The proposal kept the feed in tariff for 25 years, including a progressive tariff reduction system, favouring PV plants integration on buildigs and establishing an installed power limit of 1,200 MWp.

Answering to this proposal, the PV sector proposes to grow without limits at rates of 20% per year, on a model based on installations of quality and smaller than 10 MWp, promoting the incorporation on buildings and reducing the tariff from 10% to 15% in October 2008 and, from 2010, reducing it a 5% per year, with periodic revisions.

Some examples of shared-owned best practices

La Serna is a small town in Castilla León. Currently, its population is of 116 inhabitants. Their PV plant, of 450 kWp, is a municipal project with citizen participation of all the neighbours and town descents. Participations are small (5%) in order to allow more people to participate. The range of ages of the owners goes from 3 years (a girl) to 68 (a farmer).

“I found interesting to make aware my children (Guillermo was 4 years old and Marina 2 back then) of the way of taking care of environment. What could be better than involving them, who are the future. At the moment, they didn’t understand anything, for them that was something that was being done in La Serna so we could all have light. Now they have some other small concepts about the plant and they are proud of having broken their piggy banks to contribute with their savings to improve the environment.”




Cristina Martín with her children Guillermo and Marina San Juan

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Ona Solar is a PV plant in an urban area, on the Carmel market roof, in Barcelona. It makes easy popular participation, as it allows only investments up to 3,000 € and it’s oriented in a way that participants consider it an environmental commitment gesture, as an example for future generations. In total, there are 168 owners of the 43,74 kWp PV plant promoted by Fundació Terra.

“Sun energy is endless. We should avoid the construction of new electric plants, but if they are built, they should provide clean energy”, she explains. Yolanda is convinced that the citizens can contribute to mitigate climate change, as long as they consider themselves “part of the solution”. However, she thinks that “too many times the citizens are worried but not involved”.

Yolanda Delgado

OPDE was one of the first enterprises in promoting big ground-based shared-owned PV plants. The Huerta Solar de Cintruénigo is one of them, with an installed power of 1411 kW and 64 owners.

As co-owner of the Huerta Solar de Cintruénigo, promoted by OPDE, after the first year of operation, I am very satisfied with the achieved results. It’s a very interesting long term investment, with good profitability. Other than the other renewable energies, sun energy is the most respectful with the environment and Nature. It has a smaller environmental impact due to the conditions and technic elements needed fro the development of its activity.

Ángel Izquierdo

 

 

By Georg Hille
Germany is since years the most important PV market world-wide with a share of more than 50% of the total market volume. More than 430 000 systems are installed, mainly on buildings. Big PV plants on ground are slowly gaining importance. Key factor of this success is the Erneuerbare Energien Gesetz EEG. It is a law since 1998 with the last modification in 08/2003. It contains a constant renumeration rate for the 20 years duration while the year of comissioning determines the rate. This rate is reduced currently by 5% for newls installed PV plants. It will be amended end of 2008 with slight worse conditions for new installations.

At the moment, approx. 3700 MWp are installed, only in the last year it was about 1000 MWp. The PV industry employes around 40,000 persons. Around 20,000 (59´0%) are working as crafts men, 7% as wholesalers and 43 % in the industry and suppliers. The export share is around 38%, the import share around 25% proposes.

Some examples of shared-owned best practices

Solarfonds Stuttgarter Schulen was not the first of its kind in the regional capital of Stuttgart, but the largest and most succesful one up-to now - at public buildings.

Ecovision Solarfonds GmbH&Co. KG Stuttgarter Schulen is the name of the independant power producer IPP, a GmbH&Co. KG – limited company with joint ownership small town, where ecovision GmbH is legally liable. 77 co-owners have invested an average of 7447 € each - by a required minimum of 1500 €.
7 schools have been equipped with 309 kWp installed in 2005 and 2006.

The project is economically very succesfull.5% rate on return have been promised, now the output of payments is 15% higher, the return on investement is increasing.

“This is really a sustainable investment”, says Martin Selje, who is an active solarfriend for more than 20 years.

Regiosonne Freiburg is another succesfull project, with a cooperation between a local private project developpers, the local futbool team ( of the 1st Bundesliga) and the regional utility. Realised in 2004 and 2005. 214 limited partners invested in a GmbH&Co. KG – limited company with an average of 7447 € each.
Several buildings of the futbool team and the utility have been equipped with 1 000 kWp. Due to the lack of modules in this period, the project delayed a little bit.
However, today this project is economically succesfull, too: 6% rate on return have been promised, now the project reaches already 6.5%.
The link between the very famous futbool team and the project was a key factor for success.

“In an earlier project we linked the sales of 1-year ticket in the primary league with a share of the PV plant – therefore many people even not knowing what is PV wanted to get a limited parternship. This is not necessary any more”, says Andreas Markowsky, the keyperson of this project.

„Schwerter zu Pflugscharen“ was the sign of the peace movement in the 80th of the last century. „Schwerter zu Solarscharen“ is the name of ecovision´s new solar funds. Limited partners can join from 2.000 Euro (plus 5% Agio) onwards on this project in the military area closed to Heilbronn
Investor will become limited partners (Kommanditisten) in the GmbH & Co. KG

The 417.6 kWp need a total investment of 1.858.000 Euro and an equity of 620.000 Euro. The project developpers ecovision contracting GmbH from Stuttgart have found prominent companions for this project: In the foreword, promintents such as SPD-politicians Prof. Dr. Ernst Ulrich v. Weizsäcker und Dr. Erhard Eppler have adressed to this project.. Both are known as committed to environmental topics. The site of this plant is extraordinary, the „Waldheide“ closed to Heilbronn. This former military camp is well known as former base for the atomic Pershing-missiles during the “Cold War”.

Resumee
The investment offer in form of limited shares is convincing through transparency and low costs. CEO Georg Hille, who has worked out the design of this limited partners fund, has a long-term know-how with solar plants. He invested into sensibel and important parameters such as quality control of the modules and the plant after installation both by the Fraunhofer ISE. This means safety for the investors.

The construction of the fund with constant annual payments seems attractive. The investor can use this investment for example for his private retirement arangement.

A critical point is the long-term credit duration. Interest rate is fixed for 10 years only, a later interest Zinssprung could deteriorate the economic return considerably. It is in favour of the project developper, that he clearely indicates this risk
Who is surching a well designed participation solide konstruierte Beteiligung investment in the PV and is satisfied with a return on 5%, finds here a promising offer.

During the week of the 16th to the 21st of June, the European Meeting about Shared Owned Photovoltaic Energy will take place, in Madrid. The exact date and place of the event will be announced on the deSOLaSOL website (www.desolasol.org).

Desde	Hasta	Qué	Dónde	Logo / web
01/04/2008	02/04/2008	Concentrated Photovoltaic Summit’08	Madrid
02/04/2008	04/04/2008	Photovoltaic Technology Show 2008 Europe	Munich, Germany
11/04/2008	11/04/2008	Inmosolar. Foro de Energía Solar	Madrid
16/04/2008	18/04/2008	European Energy Forum‘08	Barcelona
15/05/2008	17/05/2008	Solarexpo 2008	Verona, Italy
21/05/2008	22/05/2008	All Energy’08	Aberdeen, UK	www.all-energy.co.uk

 
Más eventos en www.desolasol.org/es/noticias/events.asp

By Alicia Lafuente

This 20th of March, the equinox marks the season’s change, and the North Hemisphere enters into Spring while the South Hemisphere enters into Autumn. And this is because in this moment, the ecliptic, the imaginary line that describes the Sun on the “motionless” background of the stars, crosses the celestial equator, the projection of the terrestrial equator on the mentioned background. During the equinox, the length to the day and the night are equal and from now on, in our Hemisphere, light hours will be more than dark hours. Good news for the photovoltaic producers!

Several ceremonies of different religions take place around this date, as the Christian Easter or the Celtic Ostara, both about renovation and rebirth, but also many other traditions from Mesopotamia to the Maya including the ancient Greece have celebrations related to fertility and sowing.