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The Sun also Shines
A feature analysing the feasibility and opportunities of renewable energy in Malta
Rigging his office fridge, computer, TV set, VCR and lighting to solar power was meant to demonstrate the potential of solar energy - selling by example. It was the first thing that manager James Holden did, even before starting manufacturing photovoltaics (solar panel cells) at Solar Power Limited. But few people are interested in the demo office. And fewer still are impressed.
This American company which recently set up a manufacturing plant in Malta to nourish demand for photovoltaics in Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, stirred, as expected, little interest here. Only one order came through, involving an installation of 8 guardian lights for the Department of Agriculture, at a cost of Lm4,000. This brings the total number of lamps powered by solar energy to 13, the other 5 are street-lights at University.
We drag behind our Mediterranean neighbour's in generating electricity from the sun. In Israel 90% of the households heat water via solar water heaters installed on rooftops. In Cyprus it's 50%. Here it is less than 1%.
Yet our country basks in sunshine. It's free. And we have more than enough. In a hot summer's day enough sunshine pours on Comino to generate over one-fourth of our electricity during peak demand. So why are we failing to use it?
Peel away the half-excuses wrapped around the issue, and the core reasons narrow down to a combination of political indifference and the initial high cost to tap the sun's energy.
In a parcel of subsidies by the government electricity in Malta comes cheap. "The price of electricity is politically sensitive and not the real cost," observes Mario Fsadni, the executive director of the Institute of Energy Technology. "In other countries electricity reflects the real production price, so electricity from wind generators in Holland, Germany and Denmark now competes with the cost of producing electricity from fossil fuels."
But here if you install a solar water heater it would take a pile of electricity bills saved over about 10 years before you recover its cost. From then on the energy becomes free of course, but few people think ten years ahead.
"Once you've recovered the capital cost there are hardly any running costs. But initial capital outlay may be high so we introduced a pay-as-you-save scheme," says Charles Vella, marketing manager at Panta Marketing and Services Ltd. Last November the company started importing Thermomax solar water heaters which, by working in diffused light, also heat water on cloudy days. Costing over Lm1000 for the water-heating system which lasts over 15 years, Vella estimates that it pays back within 5 years. "You have to be environmentally oriented to buy our system and not simply looking at the economics of it, although both are valid reasons," Vella says. "We have installed 6 systems so far, including a large one to the Mtarfa home for the elderly."
Stephen Vassallo, a doctor from Xewkija, paid Lm500-600 for a solar water heater 3 years ago. It hasn't paid back yet. The water heated is used all around the house - for showers, washing machine, dishwasher and kitchen sink - although for a "few" days in winter he has to switch on an electric booster for a few hours to heat water. Says Vassallo: "The reason why I bought it is because I believe that we can take advantage of free solar energy. Economically it pays as well, especially if you install one when you're building a new house, because the cost of the solar water heater is minimal when compared to the cost of a
house."
The minister for the environment announced last May that the government is considering forking out subsidies on solar water heaters. This is how other countries persuaded households to install one. Israel went a step further: putting into force a law that every new house must have a solar water heater.
As the government prepares to wrap solar water heaters in economic incentives, it emerges that, on a national level, it makes economic sense to dish out incentives to switch to solar energy. Because subsidising electricity simply masks its cost - instead of paying directly for it through electricity bills, we pay via our taxes. The irony is that we waste energy because it's cheap, then pay for the energy wasted with our taxes. In 1994, Enemalta spent over 37 million to generate energy, and the electricity demand is growing by 8% annually. Industry uses 39% of the electricity produced, households absorb 31%, while tourism, services and water-generation and pumping devour 30%. Meanwhile, Enemalta "hardly" breaks even from electricity generation.
"Enemalta actually loses money on electricity generation," points out Dr. Edward Mallia, a lecturer at the Department of Physics at the university. "But it makes a big profit on sales of petrol, so the overall profits are in the black. Enemalta has to be broken down into each division and each one of these, including the electricity-generating division, must independently make a profit. The irony is that the sale of petrol never dipped even though it's expensive, but then the same people won't spend a couple of hundreds on solar water heaters."
Has Enemalta got its priorities wrong? "Enemalta is just a passive monopoly, increasing capacity to meet demand," Dr. Mallia says. "Commercial electricity-generating companies often find that a unit of energy saved is a cheaper option than a unit of extra energy generated. In America, for example, energy public utilities distributed an energy-saving lamp to each household free to avoid having to increase energy capacity. But when we suggested this to Enemalta they almost fainted."
In a recent report entitled Sustainable Malta, Friends of the Earth Malta (FOE) claim that because energy is subsidised Enemalta could, in a programme through which it will save money, subsidise solar water heaters. Subsidising solar water heaters for all 100,000 households means cutting down 60,000 tons of oil per year - a reduction that will lead Enemalat to "recover its expense [of subsidising solar water heaters] in under 3 years". This mass installation of solar water heaters, FOE argue, should be through by the year 2000.
But will it? These changes face a thick wall of inertia at every level of the process, from the political to the household. A psychological barrier also stands in the way. "Over the last decades we have become used to centralised power stations," says Dr. Mallia. "And we are geared technically to produce electricity from centralised sources, while renewable energies are dispersed - it's like having a miniature power station on every rooftop. I'm not surprised that some people will resist changing to alternative energy sources."
All over the world progress in renewable energy has been weighed down with political, practical and commercial conflicts. Most of the developments have been small-scale and isolated power plants where the economic returns are immediate, not part of a national strategy. To make renewable's more economically attractive campaigners propose energy taxes. But the U.S. and the EU have wrangled over the idea of a tax on carbon dioxide emissions for 5 years without results. They know the tax will be unpopular with voters. The oil producing countries, too, have stabbed any global initiatives on alternatives. Producing oil means big money; the third largest global money-spinner after the arms' trade and drugs.
But with global warming already here today, governments cannot shrug off the issue for much longer. The ravages of global warming will gash a wound into civilisation too deep to ignore: mass migrations, mass extinction's of plants and animals, wars and freak weather patterns that will rock civilisation as we know it. Now, insurance companies facing billions of pounds of damages with the first disruptions of global warming in the last few years - floods, droughts and fires in many parts of the world - are lobbying governments to wake up and do something. Governments cannot bury their head in scientific uncertainty on global warming for much longer. To halt global warming we have to cut down carbon dioxide emissions by 60%.
Next month UNESCO is set to catapult renewable energies on the global agenda. Heads of governments from all over the world will attend the World Solar Summit held in Zimbabwe. On their agenda they will find an ambitious plan. They will launch 300 projects selected from around the globe to develop alternative energy generation, listed under the World Plan of Action, plus a few additional projects that "will encourage nations to promote the design, manufacture and commercialisation of solar energy technologies and devices." All these projects will be financed by a World Solar Fund, which needs $2 - 3 billion annually (2% of the world's military expenditure). To scrape this money UNESCO is, once again, suggesting "carbon and energy taxes". Governments will also sign an International Solar Convention, committing themselves "to the utilisation of renewable sources of energy and efficient use of energy."
Like all other countries at the summit Malta is proposing various projects drawn up by the Institute of Energy Technology for possible inclusion in the World Plan of Action. These include a solar powered desalinisation plant (at present about 16% of electrical energy generated goes into reverse osmosis plants), wind farms to generate electricity and the widespread application of solar water heating.
Meanwhile UNESCO is trying to point out the advantages of renewable energy that rise above economic considerations. Firstly, UNESCO are tying development of renewable energy with furthering democracy: renewable energy plants are small and localised, giving power to local people who can operate them to produce their own energy. Secondly, once they are installed, energy-generation will be free, allowing countries to become self-sufficient in energy-production rather than sitting on the dormant volcano of political and market tension that is the oil industry. Energy self-sufficiency is the foundation of national security. This is important for us, if oil imports had to stop due to technological or natural disasters or a war, our country would collapse. "We have strategic reasons to develop renewable energies," says Mario Fsadni. "We are totally dependent on fossil fuels to generate 60% of our water."
Set to implement the agreements arising from the World Solar Summit between 1996 and 2005, UNESCO is targeting a 5% global dependency on renewable energies by the year 2010. The EU's target is 15%. In some countries renewable energy plants are becoming a reality. Denmark already extracts 3% of its energy from wind. California is building 9 solar power stations in the Mojave Desert, together generating 354 megawatts (in Malta we need 400 megawatts). Australia is planning one in the outback. And Morrocco, in a sweeping programme to energise the 42,000 villages that litter the country, is powering 1000
villages a year by solar energy.
Finally, renewable energies are gathering momentum. As materials like solar panels are mass-produced and the technology available is streamlined costs are dropping every day. Says Stalios Psomas of Greenpeace Greece: "In discussions we had the US gas giant Enron has shown an interest to build a series of 50-100 megawatts solar PV plants around the globe. They seem interested in building a 50 megawatts power plant in Crete, backed by a pump storage system to support this plant as well as other renewable's during the night. Enron believe they can bring the cost of solar KWh below 10 US cents, which is 2.5 times lower than the best price one can buy PV electricity at the moment. This can lead to the proliferation of PV technology."
The Greek government has seized Greenpeace's proposal to turn Crete, with a population of 650,000 and visited by 2.4 million tourists per year, into an island mainly powered by renewable energies. In a lot of ways Crete's energy scenario is similar to ours': they generate 391.8 megawatts from fossil fuel power stations, demand for energy is growing at 7% annually and they have an average of 11.3 hours of sunshine in July and 4.6 hours in January. Now the Greek government is prepared to grant 40% of costs in renewable energy plants investing up to $21 million and 30% of investments up to $104 million, plus pump an overall $200 million to develop the state's renewable energy projects. And a new law allows any company to build renewable-energy plants that produce up to 50 megawatts to be sold to the national grid, overnight shattering the state's monopoly. Working hand-in-hand with Greenpeace, the government's aim is to generate 200 megawatts from wind and 75 megawatts from biomass by the year 2000. But Greenpeace is lobbying for more; they want Crete to build a 50 megawatts solar power station.
What is the possibility of building solar power stations here? Well, 4 squared km covered with photovoltaics under the summer sun would generate an amount (400 megawatts) equal to our power stations today, and we have a land area of 316 squared km. Still, inside sources say that a solar power station in Malta is a "futuristic possibility." One problem is that we lack the expertise to do it, although the consideration which kills the idea is the high cost.
Dr. Mallia says that we have to develop wind energy too, not just solar. One boosts the other because wind dies down for most of the summer while the sun beats on us non-stop, and vice versa in winter. By putting up thousands of aero-generators Germany has reached a wind-energy capacity of 1,100 megawatts - more than twice what we need. "The problems with wind generators is that they are unsightly and bulky so I cannot imagine them at Had-Dingli," says Dr. Mallia. "We could set up a wind farm, say, at Hal Far, but because of space limitations we can perhaps generate only 1% of our electricity needs."
But before we think about these grand schemes, we have to go back to the cheapest and most effective way of cutting down carbon dioxide emissions - saving energy in the first place. "We are using energy inefficiently," says Fsadni. "The most important thing is to reduce waste and control peak electricity demands." The problem with peak demand is that we're equipped with gas turbines, which have a per-unit-electricity cost higher than steam turbines, to cater for the top part of the peaks. So the first step is to knock down the peaks as far as possible. One way to do so is to raise day rates and establish cheaper night rates, a move that will encourage some industries to shift their production from day to night and households to switch on heaters at night.
We can go a long way towards conserving electricity. For example, during the oil crisis between 1973 and 1985 GDP in the USA increased by 40% but the rate of electricity generation remained flat, because of conservation measures at a time when oil prices skyrocketed.
An effective way to save energy is to introduce the concept of "passive solar" into our buildings. This means designing buildings to maximise the use of sunshine for heat and lighting, insulating to stay cool in the summer and warm in winter and maximising natural ventilation. Studies in the UK showed that households incorporating a passive-solar-centred design halved their energy needs. Here the minister for the environment said the government is introducing this concept in new building regulations.
To supply households' electricity needs FOE suggest installing photovoltaics on rooftops. Excess electricity produced from each rooftop can be pumped into the national grid. It's like having miniature rooftop power stations, selling excess electricity to the government. (To do this Enemalta's monopoly on energy production has to be broken and two-way metres installed.) Another futuristic possibility? Germany is doing it. Earlier this year the government launched a "1000 roof" programme in which home owners got a 70% state subsidy to install rooftop photovoltaics and export surplus energy to the grid. After unexpected success, the campaign has now been extended to 2,500 households.
But the possibility of doing the same here is dampened by its price tag. To install rooftop photovoltaics with a capacity of 2 KW, more than enough for a household, you have to dash out Lm4,000 (this price includes everything from wiring to plugs to batteries for storage). "Photovoltaics will have a hard time competing on the Maltese market because electricity is subsidised," concedes Holden, Solar Power Ltd's manager. "In remote villages in large countries photovoltaic electricity is actually cheaper then spending Lm3,000 per mile to extend power lines. On the other hand, on a national and global scale, if you measure the environmental costs of burning fossil fuels, then the technology of solar power becomes attractive." We come full circle back to costs, the single factor on which discussions about renewable energy hinge. And, very often, drop dead.
"Without losing the social aspect of subsidising electricity," Dr. Mallia argues, "the price of electricity has to be put up to encourage renewable's. At the same time, there must be incentives on renewable energy sources. Politicians must have more resolve to switch the country to renewable's. New large building projects must at least have solar water heating - it should be one of the conditions of giving a building permit. And the government must lead by example. We suggested solar water heating for the new development at Mtarfa but the suggestion was rejected. Then, on newspapers we read that the government is considering giving incentives on solar energy. But certain things are so obvious, other countries have implemented them so long ago, that you think: 'How long is the government going to go on considering these things before actually doing something?'"
© Victor Paul Borg 
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