Sustainability Report - Bank Sarasin-Alpen

Solar Energy 2005
observed last year. Our forecasts of newly installed capacity for the Swiss market
are 27 MW th for 2005 and 28 MW th for 2006.
Other markets
Two rising stars:
France…
… and Spain
The French collector market has seen very dynamic expansion over the last four
years, with growth rates of more than 40%. The state subsidisation programme
“Plan Soleil” has provided an important stimulus and ensured that around
36 MW th new capacity was installed in 2004. Since January 2005 up to 40% of
the purchase cost of solar heating systems can be offset against income tax.
This figure will even increase to 50% as of 2006. The potential is still massive,
because the per capita collector area in France is still very low. Our forecasts of
newly installed capacity for the French market are 67 MW th for 2005 and
84 MW th for 2006.
Spain is another market where expectations have been high for some time. Now
it finally seems to meeting these expectations, notching up growth of 33% to 65
MW th last year. We still have high hopes, as almost 30 cities and local authorities
have since passed building ordinances that make it compulsory to install solar
heating systems when building or renovating properties (“Barcelona model”).
This commitment to solar power is due to be extended across the entire country.
Our forecasts of newly installed capacity for the Spanish market are 98 MW th for
2005 and 140 MW th for 2006.
Global market trends up to 2020
China growing steadily
New markets will emerge
For several years now China has shown itself to be a dynamic and self-sufficient
market with annual growth rates of over 20%. Demand for solar collectors will
continue to rise in future because the Chinese economy is booming. Taking into
consideration the government’s renewable energy projects mentioned earlier
and soaring fossil fuel prices, we think this current trend is set to continue.
We can expect to see new markets emerge in countries that enjoy a lot of sunshine.
These include southern European countries, the USA and Australia, as
well as newly industrialised countries such as India, Indonesia, Mexico and Brazil.
EU well short of its targets
Growth in Europe of
at least 13% up to 2010
Heating and cooling with
renewable energies
In its White Book, the European Commission has set a 2010 target of 70 GW th
for solar collectors in service. Despite the respectable growth rate of 13% in the
period 2003-2004, however, only 9.8 GW th capacity was in service at the end of
last year. Given the current growth rates, we estimate that the EU target will not
be reached until 2020 at the earliest.
After collapsing in 2002 (-22%), the European market has quickly recovered and
reverted to 13% growth in 2003/04. Taking a conservative view, the market
should also be able to maintain this rate of growth up to 2010. If, however, new
legislative or political measures provide additional support in different countries,
and gas & oil remain expensive, growth rates could well be much higher.
Heating energy accounts for roughly 50% of total EU energy consumption by
end users. This magnitude is unfortunately totally out of proportion to the public
and political attention devoted to heating energy. To provide stronger support to
solar heating in the important energy segment of “heating and cooling”, there
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