Green Cross International has launched the second annual Global Solar Report Card that ranks the policies of fourteen countries including Australia on solar PV progress.

 

Why the urgent focus on solar energy?

The planet's population is expected to grow from 6 billion to 9 billion over the next 50 years. By 2050, we will need twice as much power as we use today.

 

Unless this power comes from renewable sources, the planet's climate could get much hotter.

Leading scientists believe that ultimately the only viable energy source that can provide humanity with the energy that it needs is the sun.

 

But the challenge is daunting: to provide sufficient solar power we will need to cover about 0.15% of all the land on the earth with some kind of solar receptor (assuming they are 10% efficient).

 

The race is on to improve solar technology efficiency and reduce delivery costs to make the transition viable as soon as possible.

 

Countries poised to win solar market share

Countries with significant solar resources - which you can see on the insolation map below - are great targets for solar market development. 

 

Good technological and financial resources are also a requirement for solar to reach its potential. Australia - like a handful of other countries around the world, is ideally positioned to benefit from deep solar investments.

This is especially the case because Australia's current energy mix is very greenhouse intensive. This means that the amount of C02 saved for each kilowatt hour of installed solar capacity is much higher than in other countries converting to solar.

As the cost of carbon gets built into emissions trading regimes, saving carbon by using renewable energy will become a more attractive investment option for businesses and consumers.

 

Solar PV - the focus of the Solar Report Card - is expensive to install at the moment.

 

But over time consumers will save on energy bills, and as market demand grows to stimulate new panel and storage development, installation costs will fall.

 

Distribution of Solar Energy Potential Worldwide
(Amount of solar energy in hours, received each day on an optimally tilted surface during the worst month of the year)

World best practice in solar policy development

The Global Solar Report Card explores 16 countries and California State's solar commitments to date, and policy drivers for future PV market growth.

 

Success stories as well as lessons learned in policy implementation are discussed. Final grades reveal that all countries are still in the early phases of solar deployment.

Policy drivers crucial for PV markets include regulatory and financial incentives such as gross feed-in tariffs; mandatory renewable energy targets, tax credits for investments; and rebates for solar units installed.

 

The Global Solar Report Card ranks these using a robust methodology developed with global experts and an extensive solar policy database.

Results Highlight

 

• Only one A  - Germany (A-) again got the highest grade.
• Who doesn't love California and Italy? - California and Italy both received B-, with Italy experiencing almost 400% annual growth in installed capacity.
• Who got an F? - Poland and Russia, with governments focused marginally on other renewable energy sources and no PV-specific incentives in place, once again received failing (F) grades.
• Who's Going up - Six (6) countries received higher grades relative to 2008: Italy, Japan, Greece, China, the United Kingdom and Switzerland, though for the last two countries the higher grade was the result of a new grading scheme and not new or better incentives.
• Who fell behind? - Australia and India both fell from C to C-. Incentives are plentiful in both countries, but often lack cohesion or long-term predictability.
• 3 countries not making the grade - China (despite new programs), the United Kingdom and Canada all scored a D, suffering from a lack of incentives that are sufficient in size or scope to encourage meaningful growth.
• Small nations, small programs - Switzerland and Israel, the smallest nations evaluated, both scored a D-. Switzerland's program suffers from a lack of funding, and Israel's program is too limited.

Australia's middle-of-the-pack ranking is disappointing. Despite our massive solar resources, our policy settings rank 9th out of 17 markets assessed.

 

Introduction of a national gross feed-in-tariff would change all of that.

 

The Report Card notes: "PV has huge potential in Australia. Not only is the country one of the best insulated in the world, it also has a robust body of PV research groups (which have been emigrating overseas) and an industry already developed through a significant off-grid market'.