Sustainability Report - Bank Sarasin-Alpen

Solar Energy 2005
zenegger has recognised this threat and vetoed the law. Unfortunately this puts
the entire programme on ice for the time being. Interest in solar energy has traditionally
been very high in California, and last year almost half of America’s entire
PV capacity was installed in this state. Electricity consumption is particularly high
in the summer in this region, when air conditioners are turned up high. Solar energy
can meet this need very well, as it is particularly suited to dealing with this
type of peak load.
Fig. 11: Short and mid-term market forecast for the US
700
USA 2000 - 2010
Module production p.a. Production cap. at y/e Annual installed PV capacitiy
600
500
[MWp]
400
300
200
100
0
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Source: up to 2004 IEA-PVPS, from 2005 Sarasin
In the entire USA there are more than 50 different PV programmes of individual
federal states and utility companies. However, these fragmented measures have
not had the same sweeping effect as the unified subsidy mechanisms in Germany
and Japan. The key to the US solar market therefore still lies in California.
Cell and module production
pick up again in 2004
Last year cells with a capacity of 138 MW and modules with a capacity of 139
MW were produced in the US. After production fell in 2003, it picked up again by
35% in 2004, while module production rose as much as 95%. This fosters the
hope that the trend will turn positive again. For 2005 we forecast newly installed
capacity of 125 MW (+39%) and 2006 a capacity of 180 MW (+44%).
Other important markets
Spain has attractive
conditions for solar energy
Good conditions for a future booming market exist in Spain, which has now introduced
feed-in tariffs for renewable energy that are even more attractive than
Germany’s. Spain currently offers a tariff of EUR 0.42 per kWh for PV systems
under 100 kW and a rate of EUR 0.22 EUR for systems with an output of over
100 kW (incl. solar thermal power stations), payable over a period of 25 years.
After that, 80% of the tariff is paid until the end of the system’s working life. Soon
the threshold for the programme is due to be raised from the current level of 150
MW to 400 MW for PV systems and from 200 MW to 500 MW for solar thermal
power stations. Some initial teething problems led to certain bureaucratic obstacles,
and made the formulation of the legislation more complicated. But Spain is
obviously a very attractive country for solar energy because of its ample sunshine.
Last year 10 MW of new capacity was installed (+53%). Interestingly, almost
half the installations were greenfield sites (solar parks). Just recently Euro-
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