Mixed Greens: German renewables cheaper than coal, gas by 2030?

Here’s a powerful new incentive for Germany to meet its national energy targets: if successful, Germans could wind up paying less for electricity from renewable sources than from fossil fuels as soon as 2030. According to Germany’s environment ministry – which last week released an emailed statement citing a new study it had commissioned – renewable power will cost consumers 7.6 euro cents per kilowatt-hour in 2030, with hard coal and natural gas rising to more than 9 euro cents per kilowatt-hour. And according to Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen, the study’s projections show that Germany’s plan to transform its energy mix “is doable.” Bloomberg reports that the 331-page document monitors the EU nation’s goal to exit nuclear energy by 2022 and raise its share of renewable sources to at least 35 per cent of the power mix by the end of this decade. It forecasts Germany beating that target to reach a share of about 40 per cent renewables by 2020, up from 20 per cent now.

Plans unveiled for Japan’s biggest solar PV plant

Kyoto-based solar module supplier Kyocera, in partnership with Mizuho Corporate Bank and IHI Corporation, have unveiled plans to build a 70MW solar PV plant in Kagoshima City in southern Japan. Kyocera says the three parties have reached a “basic agreement,” with Kyocera to construct the facility – and supply 290,000 multicrystalline modules – that is provisionally called the Kagoshima Nanatsujima Mega-Solar Power Plant. Recharge News reports that the project, said to be the largest yet to be officially announced in Japan, will cost around $309 million and cover more than 1.25 million square metres on a pretty extraordinary-looking harbourside site (judging by the artist’s rendering of the proposed plant, below) owned by infrastructure group IHI – IHI will lease the land, as well as “actively participate in the operation of the project” while Mizuho will head up financing.

In a statement, the three companies said that they believed it was “their corporate responsibility to proactively tackle environmental problems” and “to resolve power supply issues caused by the effects of the Great East Japan Earthquake;” and that with the planned July 1 start of Japan’s new, improved feed-in tariff the time was right to capitalise on the new level of “expectations and interest” in solar in the country. The trio will form a special-purpose company to take the project forward and “further explore a business model for utility-scale solar power generation.” The companies say construction on the plant will commence this year, but Recharge reports that no completion date is given. The partners expect the electricity produced to be bought by Kyushu Electric Power under new Japanese regulations that govern the purchase of renewable output by utilities.

But wait, there’s more…

Kyocera et al aren’t the only Japanese companies planning to jump into solar power to capitalise on the incoming feed-in tariff – nor are they the only ones hoping to build the nation’s biggest solar plant, it would seem. The Japan Times last week reported that Japanese telco Softbank Corp. has selected a site for its own “Japan’s largest solar plant,” with an output capacity of at least 200,000kW (20MW) – and a maximum of 340,000kW (340MW). And while team Kyocera would appear to have the advantage in this race – not only in terms of planned capacity, but in that news of Softbank’s development has not come from the company itself, but from “industry sources” – the paper reports that Softbank subsidiary SB Energy Corp has selected a 480-hectare site on the waterfront of an industrial district in Tomakomai, Hokkaido, for its planned facility, “in anticipation of cashing in on the government system that …will oblige power utilities to purchase electricity from renewable energy sources generated by households and other firms.”

At 340,000kw, the plant would have the capacity to power some 100,000 households, and the report says SB Energy is negotiating with Hokkaido Electric Power over electricity purchases, “according to the sources.” Softbank did, however, announce back in early March that it has plans to set up solar power plants in Kyoto, Gunma and Tokushima prefectures, but all with far smaller capacities, with the Kyoto facility expected to produce 4,200kW, the Gunma plant 2,400kW and the Tokushima site 5,600kW.

Look Ma, no subsidies!

Meanwhile, German renewables outfit Gehrlicher Solar has signed a preliminary deal to build a 250MW PV project in Spain – without subsidies; a “a potentially major breakthrough,” points out Recharge News, “for a country whose solar market has been in the doldrums for the past four years.” Gehrlicher says it  expects to develop the plant over three years, with construction slated to begin in late 2013 in Spain’s Extremadura region. Recharge reports that the array will cost €250 million ($US328 million), will cover 750 hectares and is expected to produce 400,000MWh of electricity a year, which will be sold directly to the market. Guillermo Barea, chief executive of Gehrlicher España, has described mega-solar projects as “the future of the sector,” and said the company’s Spanish 250MW development represented “a message of optimism” that PV would become competitive in the absence of subsidies in Europe. “We need to get Spain back to the head of the global PV industry,” he said.