Long term resilient policies to support microgeneration are needed in UK according to a recent study conducted by Element Energy. It reports that other EU countries such as Holland, Austria and Germany have already spent “orders of magnitude” more funds on supporting microgeneration such as solar heating, micro wind and PV to date, compared to UK. The report also looked at how possible UK future policy measures such as zero carbon homes, revenue grants (such as a monthly subsidy for green heat or electricity, and capital upfront grants compared when projected to total uptake of each technology decades in the future.
The report reveals that high maintenence requirements may deter people from installing certain types of microgeneration. Probably the leaders in this respect will include “fit and forget” technologies such as photovoltaics, microwind and water filled solar water heating systems (such as Solartwin) since water filled solar thermal systems do not need antifreeze to be replaced every 2-3 years.
Interestingly, the report makes little distinction between zero carbon technology such as PV, micro-wind and Solartwin, against low carbon technologies such as conventional solar heating, heat pumps and combined heat and power technologies such as fuel cells. This “lumping all together” is rather odd, since only zero technologies will ever be able to deliver a genuinely zero carbon society.
It also omits to mentions one possible contender for low cost renewable energy generation, which is wind-to thermal: turbines which generate heat. This zero carbon technology is an ideal low cost means of generating large amounts of cheap heat at temperatures of 50-90C for use for water heating or central heating, and is one technology among several which is being investigated by Solartwin’s innovation department.
Looking to the future of microgeneration, the Element Energy report predicts that combined heat and power (low carbon technology) will have a major role to play in the future and that fuel cells will be a major player.
As for the present, solar water heating is identified as UK’s leading microgeneration in terms of installations already in place and it predicts steady to rapid growth for solar thermal, the rate depending on which policy measures are eventually adopted. Our view is that if fuel prices rise to over £150 per barrel, then several microgeneration technologies will enter the mainstream on costs-benefits alone. In this case, a belated kick-start from various policy support might not be needed at all.
As for growth, well, it seems to be happening now. Since January 2008, around ten percent more people – rising every month – have been asking us about solar. In addition, people who have called us in the past and who had previously rejected solar on the basis of costs-benefits, are now ordering Solartwin solar water heating panels
Written and published by -
Genfit - 0344 567 9032