Solar Industry Learns Lessons in Spanish Sun
source: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/business/energy-environment/09solar.html?em
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- covelogibbs
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To encourage development of solar power and reduce dependence on fossil fuels, Europe has generally relied on so-called feed-in tariffs, through which governments pay a hefty premium for electricity from renewable resources. Regulators in the United States have favored less direct incentives like requiring municipalities to buy a percentage of their electricity from companies making renewable energy, although a few cities and states, most notably Vermont, are experimenting with the feed-in concept.
When it was announced in the summer of 2007, Spain’s premium payment for solar power was the most generous anywhere — 58 cents per kilowatt-hour — with few strings attached.
In retrospect it was far too high. “Everyone from all over the world was installing in Spain as fast as they could, and every biologist who could add was working in solar,” said Pedro Banda, director general of the Institute of Concentration Photovoltaic Systems, one of the research institutes in Puertollano.
Even inefficient, poorly designed plants could make a profit, and speculation in solar building permits was common.
Although Spain’s long-term goal had been to produce 400 megawatts of electricity from solar panels by 2010, it reached that milestone by the end of 2007.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/business/energy-environment/09solar.html?em
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/03/08/world/33862363.JPG
When it was announced in the summer of 2007, Spain’s premium payment for solar power was the most generous anywhere — 58 cents per kilowatt-hour — with few strings attached.
In retrospect it was far too high. “Everyone from all over the world was installing in Spain as fast as they could, and every biologist who could add was working in solar,” said Pedro Banda, director general of the Institute of Concentration Photovoltaic Systems, one of the research institutes in Puertollano.
Even inefficient, poorly designed plants could make a profit, and speculation in solar building permits was common.
Although Spain’s long-term goal had been to produce 400 megawatts of electricity from solar panels by 2010, it reached that milestone by the end of 2007.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/business/energy-environment/09solar.html?em
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/03/08/world/33862363.JPG
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- groups:
- Community, Green, Solar Energy
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- tags:
- Spain, Solar, The New York Times
