Solar Energy Perspectives - IEA

Solar Energy Perspectives: Solar electricity
• Specific support for innovation could take the form of loan guarantees, as successfully
shown in the USA with large-scale innovative PV and CSP projects. Loan guarantees
remove most of investors’ and bankers’ risks from investing in emerging technologies.
This not only helps achieve financial closure of innovative projects, but also reduces the
cost of capital and thus the projected total cost of electricity (including investment,
interest rates and the projected life of the plant). Successful projects carry no cost for
public finances.
Figure 3.14 Public and corporate PV R&D expenditure (Million Euros)
Corporate PV
supporting
technologies
Corporate
PV core
technologies
Public R&D
investment
non-OECD
Public R&D
investment
OECD
R&D investments (MEuro/y)
6 500
6 000
5 500
5 000
4 500
4 000
3 500
3 000
2 500
2 000
1 500
1 000
500
0
1950 1955 1960 1965 1970
1975
1980
year
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
Source: Breyer et al., 2010.
Key point
Deployment drives private R&D efforts.
Figure 3.14
• When there is a rush to install systems in rapidly growing markets, it increases the risk of
technical mistakes in the choice and installation of solar electric systems. Governments
should find ways to help industry develop product standards and increase installers’
skills, while not introducing unfair and costly non-economic barriers to international
product trade.
• Removing existing barriers to international trade, whether tariffs or non-economic,
technical barriers, is likely to reduce the costs of solar electricity in many countries,
especially in the developing world (see, e.g. OECD 2006).
• Access to the grid must be easy and streamlined for solar electricity producers. It includes
three different aspects: the right for small producers to sell to the grid (i.e. the obligation
for grid operators to buy it), the effective and rapid connection of new devices to the grid,
and the priority given to access of solar electricity when available. In liberalised markets,
this latter aspect usually does not raise issues, as capacities required to respond to the
demand at any time are called in order of increasing marginal running costs – and those
of solar electricity are among the lowest as they include no fuel – or little fuel in the case
of hybrid solar thermal plants.
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© OECD/IEA, 2011