German Vilimelis heard about Spain’s solar gold rush from his brother-in-law in 2007.
Across the plains around Lerida, the northeastern Spanish town where they spent weekends, farmers were turning over their fields to photovoltaic panels to capitalize on government solar- energy subsidies. Vilimelis persuaded his father, Jaume, who made a living growing pears on 5 acres (2 hectares) of land in Lerida, to turn over a portion of his farm for the project, Bloomberg Markets reported in its November issue.
Vilimelis, 35, a procurement manager for a consumer goods company, pooled his family savings and mortgaged his apartment to obtain a loan of more than 400,000 euros ($558,500) to cover the investment. Within nine months, the family’s 80-kilowatt generation unit — 500 solar panels on seven racks angled toward the sun — was feeding power into the national grid.
Solar investors such as Vilimelis were lured by a 2007 law passed by the government of Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero that guaranteed producers a so-called solar tariff of as much as 44 cents per kilowatt-hour for their electricity for 25 years — more than 10 times the 2007 average wholesale price of about 4 cents per kilowatt-hour paid to mainstream energy suppliers.
Thanks to the incentives, the family met the monthly cost of the loan and even earned a small profit. Once the debt was paid off in 2018, Vilimelis looked forward to making even more money during the 15 additional years of subsidies guaranteed under Spanish law.
‘You Feel Cheated’
Now Vilimelis and more than 50,000 other Spanish solar entrepreneurs face financial disaster as the policy makers contemplate cutting the price guarantees that attracted their investment in the first place.
“You feel cheated,” he says. “We put our money in on the basis of a law.”
Zapatero introduced the subsidies three years ago as part of an effort to cut his country’s dependence on fossil fuels. At the time, he promised that the investment in renewable energy would create manufacturing jobs and that Spain could sell its panels to nations seeking to reduce carbon emissions.
Yet by failing to control the program’s cost, Zapatero saddled Spain with at least 126 billion euros of obligations to renewable-energy investors. The spending didn’t achieve the government’s aim of creating green jobs, because Spanish investors imported most of their panels from overseas when domestic manufacturers couldn’t meet short-term demand.
Stark Lesson
Spain stands as a lesson to other aspiring green-energy nations, including China and the U.S., by showing how difficult it is to build an alternative energy industry even with billions of euros in subsidies, says Ramon de la Sota, a private investor in Spanish photovoltaic panels and a former General Electric Co. executive.
“The government totally overshot with the tariff,” de la Sota says. “Now they have a huge bill to pay — but where’s the technology, where’s the know-how, where’s the value?”
U.S. President Barack Obama highlighted solar energy as part of his plan to create green jobs this month with a decision to install photovoltaic panels on the roof of the White House. The government also approved the first large-scale solar-power projects on public land. Dublin-based utility NTR Plc and Chevron Corp. will build plants in California generating enough electricity between them to power about 600,000 homes.
Sun Surplus
At first glance, Spain appears to be the perfect incubator for a solar-energy revolution. Thanks to its location in southern Europe, the country’s land mass receives 900,000 terawatt-hours ofirradiation from the sun each year, according to the European Commission — more than 3,000 times the power used annually by its citizens. In contrast, Germany, Europe’s largest economy, receives less than half that amount of irradiation. (A terawatt-hour streams enough power to run 1 billion washing machines for 60 minutes.)
The challenge for Spain was to transform that free resource into an industry that made economic sense and attracted investors. The first problem lawmakers encountered was price. Solar power, like wind and other renewable-energy sources, can’t yet compete on price against electricity generated from natural gas or coal.
Power from the most-efficient photovoltaic plants costs utilities about $275 per megawatt-hour to produce compared with about $60 for a coal-fired plant, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The cost of electricity from coal is held down in part by a plentiful supply of the mineral from established mines.
Miscalculation
Spanish policy makers reasoned that generous subsidies would help the country meet its goal of 400 megawatts of installed solar power by 2010 as well as spur the development of a manufacturing industry.
The feed-in tariff proved too successful in luring investors. By the end of 2007, solar installations had exceeded the government’s target, three years early, and the following year, investors pumped 16.4 billion euros into Spain’s solar industry, quintupling power capacity to 3,500 megawatts from 700 megawatts.
“They underestimated the technology — how cheaply panels could be installed and how quickly they could be installed,” says Jenny Chase, Zurich-based chief solar analyst at New Energy Finance. “When you have 40 megawatts of photovoltaic panels, you don’t think that if you get it wrong, you’ll end up with 3,500 megawatts.”
DoctorJJ says:
October 19, 2010 at 8:23 pm
” Charles S. Opalek, PE says:
October 19, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Solar photovoltaic power has a dirty little secret. It’s Energy Returned on Energy Invested is 0.48. Solar photovoltaic power is unsustainable.
Wind Power is worse at 0.29. First question to ask any proposed wind power project developer is: What’s the EROEI? If they won’t tell you, they have something to hide.”
“Until I see the study that confirms this, I’m gonna go ahead and say this is total BS!”
No it’s true.
And on the longer trend the numbers are even worse due to technical problems with the wind mills and failing panels in regard to solar.
You can find a lot of info at this site:
http://www.masterresource.org/2010/09/wind-not-power-iii/
And complete reports about wind and solar at the sppi blog where you can also download PDF reports
http://sppiblog.org/?s=wind+power&Submit=Go
What people forget is the fact that both wind and solar are only possible because we use oil to build them.
How green is that?
Green, sustainable, all enviro mambo jambo without merit.
“H says:
October 19, 2010 at 3:15 pm”
The other problem here in NSW, Australia, is that more and more people rent. And more and more of those renters rent apartments, so roof space (Or any common space) is unavailable to them.
But yes, I can see it will be an enormous failure.
Today the UK government will be announcing huge cuts in Government spending without any cuts in taxation, in fact more likely there will be increases. At the same time they are still keen on promoting PV subsidised at the equivalent of 60 US cents per kilowatt hour, with costs passed on to the consumers with no choice.
If the energy produced by solar cells is less than is used to make them then the greenest and cheapest thing to do is to get a field of mock solar panels and use a generator to actually produce the electricity, or just use power from the grid if you can get an independent supply. This saves CO2 over a real array of panels, and maximises financial returns. It is best not to produce electricity on a 24 hour basis as some Spanish installations did!
In the UK the carbon taxes only apply to goods produced in the UK, and nothing on anything from abroad, which could explain why most, and possibly all, wind turbines are made abroad. This could also explain the lack of ‘green jobs’.
With the lack of a viable energy policy the UK is facing blackouts in a few years time, but with a doubling of the cost of electricity! We are doomed, but every government in the developed world seems hell bent on following the same route.
Should the title not be :
Spain’s Solar Deals on Edge of Bankruptcy as Subsidies Flounder
[REPLY – Sounds fishy to me. ~ E]
Like all these things, the mistake here was a matter of timing.
The technology now isn’t cost efficient. So the focus should be on building a niche market steadily whilst technology gets better, not going mainstream with inefficient kit.
There’s no doubt that solar will be an important energy source in decades to come. Particularly in North Africa, Southern Europe, Australia, SW USA and a few other places too.
But right now the industry is like mobile phones in the 1980s………..
Some figures on EROEI for solar and wind (menu-item “Analysis”):
http://sites.google.com/site/anatomyofglobalclimatechangevj/home
Does not look bad if these figures are to be believed. Both solar and wind have positive figures.
The British Government is sick with these corrupt so-called “green” schemes.
Not being satisfied with destroying the landscape, shredding millions of birds, and bankrupting the country with wind-farms, the “green” retards currently running the place also want to ruin us with solar panels.
============================
THE BRITISH SOLAR PANEL RACKET
The British countryside sprouts solar farms as firms cash in on subsidy scheme.
Fields in Gloucestershire’s rolling countryside, immortalised by Laurie Lee in “Cider With Rosie”, may soon be covered by thousands of solar panels. Despite the lack of guaranteed sunshine, the solar farms will make a guaranteed profit because of a generous subsidy funded through increases in household energy bills.
The rate of installation of solar panels will increase 500% in Britain this year because of this feed-in tariff, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Ecotricity, a renewable energy company based in Stroud, is planning dozens of solar farms and is considering sites near its headquarters.
Dale Vince, the company’s founder, admitted that trying to generate solar power under England’s frequently gray skies was an inefficient way of reducing “greenhouse gas” emissions. Even in the sunniest parts of England, the farms will generate a third less electricity than farms of the same size in southern Spain. But, Mr Vince said that the Government’s feed-in tariff scheme, which began last month, had made solar farms economically viable.
He intends to announce within weeks the location of the first 25-acre, 5-megawatt solar farm. By 2020 Ecotricity plans to be generating 500 megawatts of electricity from solar panels, enough to power more than 100,000 homes. Mr Vince told The Times: “We are planning to build grid-connected solar farms all over the country. “We are looking on the East Coast, the South West, the South East and around here in Stroud. We don’t want to go too far north because the sunshine drops away. Halfway up the country would be the cut off, a bit north of Birmingham.”
He denied that solar farms would be a visual blight on the landscape, arguing that they would be less obtrusive than wind turbines or rows of polytunnels used to grow fruit and vegetables. “They won’t stand more than 2 meters (6.5ft) tall so you won’t see them if you look across the landscape because they will be obscured by hedgerows. “You would see them if you were standing on a hill but the visual impact is very minor compared with wind arrays.” He said that some of his farms would have solar panels and turbines in the same fields. “Solar panels and wind turbines complement each other well because in summer the winds are lighter but there is more sunlight, with the opposite in winter.” He said solar panels were 600% more expensive per unit of electricity generated as onshore wind turbines, which are themselves several times more costly than gas or coal plants.
Commenting on the subsidy available, Mr Vince said: “We don’t think a feed-in tariff policy is the best way to go but it’s here and rather than sit and sulk and say it shouldn’t be done, we are just going to get on and do it. The more people do it, the more efficient and cheaper the technology gets.” The farms will cost £15-20million each but Ecotricity will receive index-linked income for 25 years from the feed-in tariff, which starts at 29p per kilowatt hour. This should deliver a return of at least 8% a year.
The coalition Government has pledged to keep the tariff. Indeed, the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats argued while in opposition that the rates were too low. John Marjoram, the deputy mayor of Stroud and one of Britain’s first green councilors when elected in 1986, welcomed the idea of solar farms but said that 40% of the district was in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. “Of course we would encourage every sort of renewable energy because we are so far behind the rest of Europe. But we will also have to consider the visual impact,” he said.
The Campaign to Protect Rural England said that it would be better to place banks of solar panels on factory and warehouse roofs and above car parks. It said that some farms in the countryside could be acceptable, depending on the quality of the landscape.
The rate of installation of solar panels will increase 500% in Britain this year because of this feed-in tariff, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Ecotricity, a renewable energy company based in Stroud, is planning dozens of solar farms and is considering sites near its headquarters.
Dale Vince, the company’s founder, admitted that trying to generate solar power under England’s frequently gray skies was an inefficient way of reducing “greenhouse gas” emissions. Even in the sunniest parts of England, the farms will generate 33% less electricity than farms of the same size in southern Spain, but said that the Government’s feed-in tariff scheme, which began last month, had made solar farms economically viable.
He intends to announce within weeks the location of the first 25-acre, 5-megawatt solar farm. By 2020 Ecotricity plans to be generating 500 megawatts of electricity from solar panels, enough to power more than 100,000 homes. Mr Vince told The Times: “We are planning to build grid-connected solar farms all over the country. We are looking on the East Coast, the South West, the South East and around here in Stroud. We don’t want to go too far north because the sunshine drops away. Halfway up the country would be the cut off, a bit north of Birmingham.”
Mr Vince said that some of his farms would have solar panels and turbines in the same fields. “Solar panels and wind turbines complement each other well because in summer the winds are lighter but there is more sunlight, with the opposite in winter.”
**********************************************
I have just been informed by my electricity supplier that my bills will increase by 25% with immediate effect to pay for the same level of consumption. This is a direct result of this sort of green-washed tree-hugging fraud. Clean coal and nuclear are the only realistic solutions – not this fashionable eco-lunacy.
So Britain’s beautiful countryside, already suffering from choked roads and a lack of rail infrastructure, abandoned villages and closing pubs, will be blighted still further by useless “renewable” energy projects, which will make a lot of money for the installers and the owners of the properties where they are placed and will cost the ordinary taxpayer dear. Were it necessary, were the threat of CO2 emissions actually real and harmful to the earth’s future, it would still be a folly.
No amount of these solar panel or wind farms can hope to provide all the power needed by Britain in a cold winter (and perhaps there may be a few more of those yet before the message finally gets through to the deluded “green” fascists). Nuclear power is the only real hope for Britain as it is here in France. I hope the new coalition is able to swallow their pride and accept this before lights go out with unpleasant repercussions for everyone.
*************************************************
Solar panel firms “are misleading consumers”
The consumer group Which? called on industry to clean up its act after undercover investigation revealed high-pressure sales tactics. Solar power installers are bamboozling householders with high pressure sales tactics and misleading financial statistics, an undercover investigation by a consumer group has found.
The consumer group Which? condemned most of the companies it came across as “cowboys” and cautioned that the Government would have to clean up the taxpayer-backed industry, vital for the battle against climate change, unless it improved its performance.
The consumer group launched its investigation after a rise in complaints about solar thermal firms. Undercover researchers rented a house in southern England and invited firms to quote for installing solar thermal systems, which use sunlight to heat tap water. Of the 10 that exaggerated the financial savings that could be made, the double-glazing giant Everest subsequently admitted that its representative had made false claims – that its system could save 30 times more money than was possible. Another firm, Ideal Solar Energy, wrongly claimed a solar scheme could halve gas bills and grossly misquoted energy supply statistics from the energy regulator Ofgem.
Which? said: “While these two companies concerned us the most, we received poor service and exaggerated claims of performance from nearly all 14 firms.” Its chief executive, Peter Vicary-Smith, said: “Most of the firms in our investigation behaved like true cowboys – they promised huge savings that bore no relation to reality, and some really piled pressure on the homeowner to sign up immediately or risk losing a one-off ‘special offer’.” He added: “The solar industry is too important to our long-term energy needs for things to drag on like this.”
Neil McLoughlin, a trading standards officer who saw undercover footage of the Everest sales visit, said the precise nature of the quotation made the claim even more misleading and suggested the Everest may have broken the law on sales tactics by offering thousands of pounds off the price for making a decision “on the spot”. After being informed of the “sting”, Everest said: “We’re disappointed that our representative failed to use the sales support documentation provided and made claims he knew to be false.” In addition to boasting it could halve gas bills, Ideal successively dropped its originally quote of £8,690 to £5,860 and made a “pushy” phone call to the householder. It also misquoted statistics from energy regulator Ofgem about the proportion of a gas bill that goes on heating. Ideal later defended its pitch, saying: “Like all retailers, we offer limited promotions on a selective basis” and added it instructed its sales agents not to specify savings to hot water bills.
Just one company, Southern Solar, was found to be helpful and provide sensible advice.
Last year, the OFT received 1,000 complaints about the solar panel industry – high for an industry with fewer than 100,000 installations in UK homes.
The Renewable Energy Association, a trade body which runs an assurance scheme for solar installers, said it was concerned by the report. A spokesman said: “We will be contacting Which? to follow up on their investigation, and take any action necessary against any of the companies which are members of our scheme.”
——————————————————
From August 5, 2010 a British company, HomeSun, started giving away the first of 100,000 solar power systems to anyone with a decent-sized south facing roof. A staggering 2.5 million homes could be eligible in this £1billion giveaway set to run for three years.
The scheme enables homeowners to cut electricity bills immediately, to the tune of about 40% a year. For a typical homeowner, in a three-bedroom semi, that’s about £250 a year.
So what’s the catch? Remarkably, there doesn’t appear to be one. HomeSun, run by respected entrepreneur Daniel Green, isn’t a charity. Rather, it has a simple business model which provides homes with free power but also enables the company to profit. With his customary eye for spotting an opportunity, Green figures that most people are deterred from solar systems because of start-up costs. With a system costing £15,000 it can take at least a decade for anyone investing in the expensive equipment to begin seeing a return. That’s why the UK, unlike Germany where solar power is booming because of government incentive schemes, is trailing.
HomeSun, however, can afford to give away the systems because energy companies are now compelled, for the next 25 years, to make payments to homeowners for all solar power produced. That’s both power used in the home and any surpluses.
The new Government-backed incentive scheme is meant to encourage us to become greener and help the country to meet tough EU “emissions” targets. Under the company’s scheme customers get to keep all the solar power they need, free of charge, and the fees received from the energy companies – known as Feed-in Tariffs – go directly to HomeSun. In addition to providing and installing the systems the company will maintain them for 25 years.
It would seem that the beauty of this new scheme is that everyone wins at a time when bills have doubled.
Currently it’s estimated that 27% of carbon dioxide emissions come from homes so there’s also an environmental bonus. Green accepts, though, that most of his potential customers will be driven by hard-headed economics.
Currently, only a handful of British homes benefit from solar power, although it’s clean and systems are easy to install. Green estimates it could be as few as 1,000 out of 24 million homes. “People have been nervous about solar power because it’s seen as expensive and we don’t have a very sunny climate,” he says. “The technology for solar power has been around for decades. Germany provides 50% of the world’s solar power yet we’re nowhere. That is going to change. There is going to be a revolution and that’s what excites me.”
Should anyone doubt his commitment they should take a peek up the drive of his home in North West London, where a Toyota Prius sits. The petrol and electric hybrid has replaced the cherished 6-liter Aston Martin, which Green drove until a few months ago. He adds: “I’m not a charity and I haven’t become a tree-hugger. However, I do think we’re mad not to make more use of such a great natural and free resource as the sun.”
Solar power is provided by harnessing light – not heat – from the sun and although not as effective in cloudy conditions still provides enough electricity to operate most of the gadgets and white goods in our homes. Overall, at the right property, it will provide 40% of a home’s electricity needs. Ironically, rainy weather is a bonus, helping to keep panels clean and performing well. It all works with the normal power supply, which kicks in automatically when there’s insufficient solar energy. Along with the savings, it’s predicted that conventional energy costs are set to, well, go through the roof in the next few years.
Not everyone will be eligible. Solar panels work best on roofs facing South, South East or South West, where there’s no shade from trees or neighboring buildings. Just a small amount of shade can cut the efficiency by 50% and if your home faces North, forget it.
HomeSun will assess your roof before providing a system and there’s a second scheme for roofs that are not perfect, in which property owners pay £500 for the equipment and £5 a month. It’s in the company’s interests to make sure your roof is suitable because it relies on the payments from the electricity companies for power generated to make its profits.
Green is convinced that the UK is on the verge of a solar power boom, adding: “There’s the political will for this. I have spoken to David Cameron and he is very committed. I think people do care about the environment and having a solar power system on your roof is a badge of honour. In any case, no-one is going to argue about getting free electricity.”
As a boy Green was expelled from grammar school and told by his exasperated headmaster that he’d never amount to much. At the time, instead of studying for exams that were expected to secure him a place at Oxbridge, he was bunking off lessons to plot his first business venture. Green, who was allowed to sit his A-levels, gained moderate results but the head’s gloomy prediction for his future prospects could hardly have been wider of the mark. Barely into his 30’s, he became a millionaire when he sold his clothing company and has never looked back.
Green, 43, isn’t a fan of rich lists and is reluctant to discuss his wealth but it’s estimated that he’s now worth several millions. He can truly be said to have the Midas touch. Allied with an uncanny ability to spot a trend, they’re why his latest venture demands to be taken seriously. His first venture, soon after he left Leeds Grammar School under a cloud, was to found Identikit, his own men’s clothing label. Later, he launched Brand Centres, based on a business model of selling designer labels at out-of-town sites to keep costs down. He was offering Armani jeans for under £70 when High Street rivals were asking £100.
Green made his first millions when he sold the business to Moss Bros in 1999, then spotted the digital revolution looming in television and the internet. His company, You Me TV, which helped customers find the best packages, was eventually sold to Sky for another fortune and Green became head of Sky Retail for three years before branching out solo again. A popular boss, many of his workers have moved with him.
“To be successful you have to have a vision and focus doggedly on it,” he said. “The business takes over your life, even at the breakfast and dinner table. It gets in your blood but it can be very lonely. Whatever I was going to do next it had to be a sustainable business and make me proud.”
Green says events in the Gulf of Mexico, where BP battled the disastrous oil spill, reinforced the path he has taken. “Oil is the new tobacco,” he says. “BP has got the British brand all over it and been terrible for the country.”
The US is another world leader in solar power, where an unlikely figure is spearheading the drive. Larry Hagman, better known as oil baron JR Ewing in Dallas, is now the public face of solar power for a German company. His mansion in California is covered in solar panels.
Even more bizarre is the UK Solar Farm industry, notice that the one thing missing in the picture at the top of this article is sunshine. It would be funny if it didn’t take cash from my wallet.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-11483542
It is not the power coming in that you count but the power you get out. These things are below 20% efficient, the earlier ones were 7-9% efficient, and only work during the day. I know this area in Spain. It is a bit desolate and agricultural production was high with fruit, grape vines for cheap wine and maize. They are losing growing land for little profit. They get intermittent power and no crops. A loss leader.
Steve says:
October 19, 2010 at 3:42 pm
Sorry to nitpick, but the in title ‘Founder’ should be ‘Flounder’?
[Reply: Either one works. ~dbs, WUWT spelling gestapo.]
Sorry Steve and Gestapo, I’m going to nitpick your nitpick and nitpick your nitpick rebuttal respectively.
‘Founder’ in this context means to fail utterly, from the nautical term ‘to founder’, meaning to sink. It is (apparently) derived from the Old French ‘fondrer’, meaning ‘to (go to the) bottom’, itself from the Latin ‘fundus’ – bottom.
‘Flounder’ means to flap about in confusion; it is also a flatfish that seems to get an unfairly bad press – are they really noted for their confused behaviour?
So anyway this scheme has either sunk or is afloat but thrown into confusion – the former may be rapidly followed by the latter of course. We have a similar scheme in the UK and I find it amazing that people don’t see that it is the most blatant scam. The electricity supplier buys back electicity from consumers at far more than they sell it for – what could possibly go wrong? Of course some mug has to pay, and when they run out of money, the game is up. The mugs in this case are the Spanish and British public, and I for one have had enough of having my pocket picked by pompous middle-class twits.
[Reply: Good post. But I did look up both definitions before commenting: “Flounder: • figurative; to be in serious difficulty.” Either term works in the instant context. But founder is most correct. ~dbs]
On the good news front, the UK government has just approved 8 nuclear power stations to be built in the immediate futeure. The same government has also canned the huge experimental wave generator that was to be built at the mouth of the Severn.
Strangely, the government has been VERY quiet about both items!
The same government is also paying X4 retail power subsidies for installation of solar panel arrays – no grown-up, or joined-up, thinking going on here.
Doctor JJ @8.23
In John Etheringtons “The Wind Farm Scam” he quantifies CO2 savings attributed to wind turbines.
each MW of installed wind power capacity displaces no more than 1130 tonne of CO2 per year. Calculated with a 30% load factor (many consider it should be closer to 20%) and 0.43 t/MWh ( the average CO2 emission from the UK grid mix of thermal power stations). The calculated payback time for construction and erection is about 1.1 years.
Wind turbines do need thermal base load backup and because that backup has to be immediately available for when the wind drops or exceeds safe operating speeds the backup is running at sub-optimal load levels. For every MW of installed wind capacity there needs to be a MW of thermal backup capacity.
The UK experience is showing that despite large investments in wind power the CO2 savings will be less than that of shutting one medium sized coal fired power station. So whether all that equates to a .48 EROEI or not I can’t say. What does appear obvious is that wind is ineffective and horribly expensive compared to coal. The logical answer to reducing CO2 without reducing our power supply is to go nuclear.
Regarding subsidies. Subsidies simply inflate prices no matter the good intentions. Cheap housing loans or government grants simply increase house prices by a similar amount. Subsidise wind turbines or solar panels and the price rises to meet the new upper limit. It has always been thus. Alternative power just has to competewith the current cheapest available and that is coal.
The first part of Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes, was published in 1605… and the first English translation was published seven years later in 1612.
Don Quixote is famous for tilting at windmills, not paying his debts and experiencing many humiliations… so perhaps the book should now be re-classified as non-fiction.
In Australian news today, miners are claiming the Federal Government is renegging on its Mining Resources Tax Heads of Agreement concerning payment of royalties. An ironic comment on television tonight: ‘If you can’t trust the Government, who can you trust?’
In Spain, the real problem about the energy is that there has been no new nuclear plants in the last 30 years and most people ideas for the near future are about closing the old ones (8 providing 20% of total electricity) that still are running (one of them was closed last year)
Of course, coal/fuel burning is not a nice option in the spanish eco-paradise, so these kind of facilities also face a ‘dark’ future.
So we will end up with a really big dependence on wind turbines, solar panels and hydroelectricity, with natural gas being the last resource for those days with no wind, almost no sun and not too much water in dams.
The net outcome of all these facts is that electricity prices are skyrocketing and a lot of business cannot make a profit with this kind of huge costs .. and unemployment is also skyrocketing: 20% official data … near 30% unofficial data !! -> unemployed people that accept to take some kind of courses offered by the goverment in order to improve their professional skills are no longer accounted as unemployed and people with tiny jobs (1hr/day) that are actively searching for a full time job aren’t accounted as unemployed.
Spain is a very good example of a deeply flawed energy policy, as a result of letting eco-friendly wishful thinking people to manage it.
“Beth Cooper says:
October 20, 2010 at 3:29 am”
Trusting Govn’t/Politicians is an oxymoron like “military intelligence” sadly…LOL
“Alexander K says:
October 20, 2010 at 2:14 am”
Wasteful spending by the UK Govn’t is under review and will likely be severely cutback by upto 25%. The UK is in so much debt (Thanks New Labour), like ~30% of GDP I understand.
Living in Ontario, where the power is always called “hydro” I am bemused at the government drive to double my hydro bill to subsidise these con men, I am glad these fre loaders are in trouble, I doubt they care about those who cannot afford their expensive power, I hope a lot loose everything the have! Also I have read that the output drops off yearly on those units.
“1336: BBC science correspondent David Shukman says: Mr Osborne confirms £1bn funding for a carbon capture and storage project. However, the original plans had been for “up to four” such projects. \r”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11566509
Seems we are going to follw the Spanish model
Clearly the best use of solar power, in this case is…
Growing pears!!!
The left loves to scold the rest of us about “sustainability”, yet they favor projects that cannot be sustainable without open-ended subsidies. And there is never any accounting for the economic damage the tax does to other people in other places. Solar power is a great concept, but its economics stink. If someone wants to install some panels, that is fine, just don’t coerce others to help pay for it.
We used to be prosperous enough to afford to entertain these sustainability experts with their childish Utopian dreams, but those days are OVER, by a trillion times they are over. We cannot afford to make any more investments that pay back 10 cents for each dollar we borrow from China. We must stop walking down the road to serfdom. The fist step in this 12 step process is being brutally honest about the cost of these projects. The ones that are one easily profitable must be stopped immediately.
The salvage and reclamation industry will be making money when those solar panels and windmills end up being scrapped sonner than later. You have to wonder which politicians will profit from that windfall….
So essentially in the future when everyone goes we don’t want no spanish law, it’s not that Spain is about to conquer us all, but not wanting to get cheaply ripped off, like some victim from some crazed street nazi, by the government.
Now Vilimelis and more than 50,000 other Spanish solar entrepreneurs face financial disaster as the policy makers contemplate cutting the price guarantees that attracted their investment in the first place.
“You feel cheated,” he says. “We put our money in on the basis of a law.”
Suckers. Anyone who believes what the government says (ours or theirs) is a fool. Governments can only be depended on for three constants; they will 1. lie, 2. cheat, and 3. steal. (I wish I was being sarcastic, but I’m not.)