November 2009
Summary
Réalités industrielles
Solar electtricity and countries in the Mediterranean Bassin
Complete issue
This issue was coordinated
by Claude TRINK
This issue was coordinated
Editorial
By Pierre Couveinhes
Introduction
By Claude Trink
Ingénieur général des Mines Membre du Conseil général de l'Industrie, de l'Energie et des Technologies
I - High stakes
The Mediterranean Solar Plan, a model of cooperation bandween the two shores of the Mediterranean
By Jean-Michel Charpin
Inspecteur général des Finances
et Nasser Kamel
Ambassadeur de la République arabe d'Egypte en France
Launched on 13 July 2008 during the Paris Summit, the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) reinforces the partnership between Mediterranean lands and the EU: 43 nations are participating on equal footing in regional projects. The UfM follows up on the achievements of the Barcelona Process, which was based on institutional cooperation in four major fields (a political dialog; free trade and economic cooperation; a social and cultural dialog; and cooperation in matters of migration, social integration, justice and security). The UfM backed and completed the policies and reforms established in the frame of the Barcelona Process, by focusing attention on concrete projects and results. The joint declaration during the Paris Summit identified six priorities: cleaning up pollution in the Mediterranean; sea and land routes; civil defense; higher education and research; the development of firms; and alternative sources of energy as part of the Mediterranean Solar Plan (MSP). Thanks to its regional approach centered on the Mediterranean Basin, the MSP can become a paragon of cooperation, since it responds to the objectives of countries on both shores.
The Mediterranean Solar Plan and the Union for the Mediterranean
By Antoine-Tristan Mocilnikar
Ingénieur en chef des Mines Responsable de l'Environnement et du Développement durable à la Mission Union pour la Méditerranée de la Présidence de la République
Set up following an initiative by the president of France on 13 July 2008 during the Paris Summit and grouping 43 countries, the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) seeks to weave ever tighter bonds of solidarity between peoples in the Mediterranean Basin through concrete projects for peace and prosperity. At a time when a multipolar world is making old and new players in economic development compete, this new cooperation will strengthen both Europe and the Mediterranean. Heads of state and of government steer the UfM, over which France and Egypt currently preside. The organization intends to impart a new driving force to exchanges between the EU and non-EU countries around the Mediterranean. These lands are geographically, historically and culturally close but still economically and socially distant.
The Mediterranean Solar Plan: The momentum and challenges of a project of cooperation in politics, industry and energy
By Philippe Lorec
Administrateur civil, adjoint du Directeur général, en charge du PSM Direction générale de l'Energie et du Climat (MEEDDM)
et Christophe Schramm
Ingénieur des Mines, adjoint au chef du bureau des énergies renouvelables Direction générale de l'Energie et du Climat (MEEDDM)
Launched by the French President on 13 July 2008, the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) seeks to inaugurate an era of cooperation between lands to the north, south and east of the Mediterranean by carrying out concrete projects in response to the challenges that this region must address. The UfM applies, we might say, the “Monnet method” to the Mediterranean Basin. In this region as in post-war Europe, energy is a major issue that, if left unsettled, might generate major risks but that, if addressed for the sake of a new political and economic partnership, could represent a major opportunity. The Mediterranean Solar Plan has this precise objective. It seeks to activate the de facto solidarity between lands around the Mediterranean and to bring them to cooperate on energy, industrial, economic and social projects.
The Mediterranean Solar Plan’s impact on interconnections bandween electricity grids in the Mediterranean Basin
By François Meslier
Directeur EDF
et Pierre Palat
Ingénieur général des Mines
In compliance with the Barcelona objective set in 1995, the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean have decided to hitch the future of their energy to a European plan for a Euro-Mediterranean energy market. The Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) has inherited and adopted this objective with the backing of all countries concerned. The Mediterranean Solar Plan (MSP), one of the UfM’s six priorities, will have a strong impact on interconnecting the electricity grids of exporting and importing lands. It aims at an additional production of 20 GW of electricity by 2020 in countries on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean. The possibility for these countries to export toward the north a significant percentage of this electricity is considered to be a financial guarantee of the profit-earning potential of the investments to be made. It also represents a contribution by countries in the North toward achieving their own objectives, namely: renewable sources of energy are to account for 20% of the energy consumed there by 2020. The MSP will also have an impact stemming from the political determination to quickly make the first investments for testing both its financial feasibility and the procedures whereby countries in their North will import renewable electricity under article 9 of the Energy-Climate directive.
II - Raising capital
The model for funding the Mediterranean Solar Plan
By Michel Laffitte et Florent Massou
Inspecteurs des Finances
The Mediterranean Solar Plan’s (MSP) principal objective is to produce, by 2020, 20 GW of additional — low-carbon, mainly solar — electricity in lands on the southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean. In France, the Inspection Générale des Finances and the Conseil Général de l’Industrie, de l’Énergie et des Technologies (CGIET) have the assignment to validate the initial studies made for identifying needs, the technology to be used and the cost of the investments necessary for building renewable energy power stations. The results of the economic and financial simulations of the MSP are presented.
The Mediterranean Solar Plan, the symbol of a Euro-Mediterranean partnership? The European Investment Bank at the service of a policy for renewable energy
By Philippe de Fontaine-Vive
Vice-Président de la Banque Européenne d'investissement (BEI)
Throughout the last fifty years, the construction of Europe has gone through spates of growth and turbulence with successive stages of enlargement and debates about EU governance, alternating periods of economic expansion and contraction with their social effects…. Nonetheless, the EU has gradually taken root in our everyday environment, and the European Investment Bank (EIB) is, we suppose, not foreign to this process. Created following the adoption of the Rome Treaty, this bank has lent support to economic growth and solidarity inside and outside the EU. In practice, the priorities and means have changed but without ever questioning the requirement to improve competitiveness and promote harmonious development. The energy sector is exemplary of the bank’s ability to adapt and of its concern for a certain idea of Europe. This priority is examined from three complementary angles: the EIB and renewable energy; the EIB and the partnership for energy with our Mediterranean neighbors; and the EIB and the Mediterranean Solar Plan.
The World Bank’s support for concentrated solar power stations
By Silvia Pariente-David, Jonathan Walters, Chandra Govindarajalu et Roger Coma Cunill
Banque mondiale
The Clean Technology Fund (CTF) was set up in 2008 to provide funding, especially subsidies, on an industrial scale for projects that experiment with, deploy or transfer low-carbon technology, which can potentially reduce greenhouse gas emissions significantly in the long run. The CTF helps multilateral development banks providing the funds needed, and giving a boost to experiments with low-carbon techniques, while waiting for the conclusion of the negotiations conducted by the UN on climate change. The World Bank manages this temporary fund. The CTF uses the capacity of multilateral development banks to exercise leverage for raising the private and public capital for investments in low-carbon technology. It publicizes the latter’s positive effects on the environment and development by claiming that this technology can help reach national development objectives. Finally, it provides attractive funding, including grants for covering the identifiable additional costs of the investments necessary for making a project viable.
Funding renewable electricity as part of the Mediterranean Solar Plan
By Rima Le Coguic et Christian de Gromard
Agence Française de Développement (AFD)
Factors related to energy and the climate are now weighing down on the economies of both developed and emerging lands. All countries are urged to advance quickly toward systems that save energy and reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. Energy and climate issues are a major concern in countries to the south and east of the Mediterranean. Given their growth rates, ranging from 6% to 8%, their demand for energy is rising twice as fast as Europe’s while their production — dependent for 99% on fossil fuels — is vulnerable owing to the volatility of (rising) oil prices. To cope with this situation, these Mediterranean lands are forced to intensify their policies for controlling energy: efficiency must be combined with savings, and with renewable sources of energy as well as a reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
III - At stake for industry
But where are the French firms for making the equipment needed to produce solar electricity?
By Claude Trink
Ingénieur général des Mines membre du Conseil général de l'Industrie de l'Energie et des Technologies
Under the Mediterranean Solar Plan, the production of electricity from wind and solar power has given birth to several industries, which, by the end of 2008, were thriving thanks, in particular, to the favorable rates based on the production costs of this sort of electricity and, also, the laws and regulations in several Western countries and Japan that require purchases of this electricity. Several firms have developed, even in China, with activities mainly oriented toward exportation. They are now playing a worldwide role.
Photovoltaic solar energy
By Pâris Mouratoglou
Président d'EDF Energies Nouvelles
et Pierre-Guy Thérond
Directeur Nouvelles Technologies
Photovoltaic power stations apply the photoelectric principle for directly converting light into electricity. As Einstein proved, classical 19th-century physics could not explain this phenomenon, which Becquerel had discovered. This experimental finding underlies much of modern quantum physics, which provides the only explanation of how electrons and the energy of light (borne by photons) interact. The unit for converting light to electricity depends on one or more junctions between semi-conductors. These basic principles set the stage. Photovoltaic energy is simple to use, since it does not depend on any complex thermodynamic cycle. Furthermore, its operation does not call for any kind of combustion, and does not emit any pollution (in particular no CO2). Photovoltaic conversion units are a paragon of modern objects.
A French specificity: Installing photovoltaic solar cells in buildings
By Henri Triebel
Ingénieur des Ponts et Chaussées Président de COFRAMENAL SAS
A 10 July 2006 ministerial decision significantly altered the price at which Électricité de France purchases photovoltaic electricity: from 14 to 30 cents per kWh, or even 55 in the case of photovoltaic cells integrated in the buildings. As a follow-up to this decision, an income tax credit for “sustainable development” was introduced for private individuals who install this type of equipment on their roofs. The effects were immediate: compared with the 35 MW installed in the country in 2007, 105 MW were installed in 2008 — this amounts to tripling the installations per year. Nonetheless, France’s production capacity is moderate. Photovoltaic cells now account for 175 MW. By comparison, Germany, in 2008 alone, recorded a volume of additional installations of 1.35 GW; and Spain, 3.1 GW. Whereas the Spanish government’s strategy has oriented players in the market toward big photovoltaic solar farms by proposing high rates for buying the current thus generated, France’s policy has favored installing photovoltaic cells on buildings and houses with, as a consequence, the development of smaller-scale projects.
Sophia Antipolis énergie développement : un nouveau type de centrales solaires thermodynamiques
By Michel Wohrer
Président de Sophia Antipolis Energie Développement SAS
Sophia Antipolis Énergie Développement (SAED) was founded in January 2008 to develop the use of low-temperature solar energy (less than 150°C). Owing to proprietary technology, the firm can substantially lower the production cost of low-temperature solar heat and envision the construction of power stations with an industrial potential. This thermal energy can thus be used to produce electricity at prices competitive with others sorts of solar electricity. Its advantage should enable the company to win a share in the market for solar electricity power stations. This thermal energy can also help save fossil fuels under profitable conditions given the current price of oil.
A new building material that produces energy: Silicon thin films
By Claire Tutenuit
Présidente de Solsia
et Hugues-Antoine Guinoiseau
Directeur du Développement de Solsia
The challenge during the coming twenty years will be to reduce the production cost a photovoltaic kWh. Several laboratories and industries around the world are working on this and have already obtained promising results. The purchase price of panels per watt-peak (€/Wp) has come down from several euros to less than two over the past ten years. Progress must still be made to reach the “grid parity”, where the production cost of photovoltaic electricity and of other sources of energy will be equivalent but without the former losing any of its advantages in relation to protection of the environment and social acceptability. Silicon thin-film (SiTh) technology, which can now be used in industry, might be the first photovoltaic technology to reach parity. Its aesthetic, environmental and energy advantages add to its economic interest. Given this material’s technical characteristics and its energy yields, it has a wide range of uses in many situations (east/west orientation, slopes from vertical to nearly horizontal, etc.). Whether or not it will be socially acceptable mainly depends on how it will be used in buildings. Crucial factors for determining its future in France are its aesthetics and complementarity with traditional building materials. SiTh panels can be installed on existing buildings, or any constructed surface, which are in general located in inhabited zones The SiTh technoly makes possible energy production with most types of buildings.
The comeback of a French player in concentrated solar power technology
By Roger Pujol
Directeur général de la Division Energie Solaire, Constructions Industrielles de la Méditerranée
The principle of concentrated solar power is simple. It was already known in ancient Greece, where, according to a legend, Archimedes used it to set ablaze the Roman ships assailing the city of Syracuse in Sicily. Mirrors placed in the form of a parabola direct the sun’s rays onto a point where a heat-transfer fluid retrieves the calories. There are four families of reflectors for capturing the heat and four families of fluids for transferring it. Two of the first four families use a parabolic form, which focuses heat on a point in order to obtain a high temperature. To operate, these reflectors have to move along two axes in order to follow the sun. The other two families of reflectors have a cylindrical-parabolic form, and the sun’s rays are concentrated not on a single point but on a line. Therefore, the flux and temperatures are lower than with the aforementioned methods. The reflector moves along a single axis. Among the heat-transfer fluids are molten salt, synthetic oils and pressurized water, vapor and gases.
IV - Developments abroad
Relaunching the production of “green” electricity in the United States: Promandheus meands Keynes
By Marc Magaud
Mission pour la Science et la Technologie Ambassade de France aux Etats-Unis
et Daniel Ochoa
Directeur adjoint chargé de l'innovation et du développement à l'Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Saint-Etienne
During his campaign, Barack Obama insisted on the close tie between the recession, climate change and national security in matters of energy, given the country’s excessive dependence on oil imports. He outlined the development of a low-carbon economy that would, in 2050, emit only 20% as much greenhouse gas as in 1990. He pledged to devote, over a ten-year period, 150 billion dollars to R&D on renewable energy, either through direct funding (grants, loan guarantees, purchases by the federal government, etc.) or tax incentives. He also spoke about the potential creation of five million jobs in environmental-friendly technology. Given his first official declarations on climate change and the importance of the theme of energy in the first measures taken by his administration, the new president has reflected the same level of concern as the candidate. Since his election, Obama has pursued the same policy line by orienting his massive economic stimulus plan ($787 billion) toward creating “green jobs”, especially in energy ($85 billion). In the stimulus package, R&D for new sources of low-carbon energy — stocking CO2 underground, solar and geothermal energy, wind power, second-generation biofuels, etc. — figures among the top priorities.
Germany: The dazzling development of the solar industry, with significant backing from research
By Jean-François Dupuis
Conseiller pour la Science et la Technologie à l'Ambassade de France en Allemagne
Claire Vaille
et Nicolas Cluzel
Chargés de mission au Service scientifique de l'Ambassade de France en Allemagne
The development of the German solar industry in less than a decade has proven wrong the critics who claimed that this source of energy would be too expensive and that the country’s climate is too cold for it. The development of this industry and of renewable energy in general can be set down to support from the federal and state governments for investing in R&D and for creating conditions that have stimulated growth in this sector. Although this industry is experiencing difficulties owing to the recession and the emergence of rivals in Asia, the trend it represents has taken root. German industrialists are now turning toward North Africa, evidence thereof being the highly publicized DESERTEC Plan, inaugurated on 13 July 2009 in Munich.
What is possible in Germany should also be a success in France: The development of Q-Cells, the first manufacturer worldwide of solar cells
By Markus Wieser et Frank Strümpfel
Entreprise Q-Cells
Let’s be clear: the industrial growth observed in photovoltaics in Germany, Japan, China and Taiwan should no longer be taken for granted, at least not in the near future. To their advantage, these countries have, since the early 1980s, been backing the pioneering industries that are now aces in the hole owing to their size (economies of scale) and know-how. In the short run, we will probably observe a consolidation in photovoltaics, whence trouble for the many small firms operating with limited financial means. The next phase in this industry’s development is being staked out. The starting signal has been given for this round of competition, but we do not know which countries in Europe, Asia or America will be leading the race.
Does renewable energy in Spain still have wind in its sails?
By Thomas Vial
Attaché commercial, Chef de pôle, Mission économique-Ubifrance Ambassade de France en Espagne
et Guy Molénat
Attaché scientifique, Service pour la Science et la technologie Ambassade de France en Espagne
Spain is apparently contradictory. It figures among the European countries farthest from the Kyoto Protocol’s objectives but is often cited as an example, even by President Obama, for its success in speeding up developments in renewable energy. Successes in solar and wind power have proven that Spanish industry can, with support from the state and within a decade, develop to become competitive internationally at the very time when climate change will be having repercussions on economic models and opening new markets. From this vantage point, big projects (like the Mediterranean Solar Plan or future EU initiatives related to the Energy-Climate package) should stimulate the Spanish, who will probably soon be looking for European partners. Given its advantages in wind and solar energy, the country should be able to consolidate an efficient energy solution with a promising future, while reinforcing its particularly innovative industry.
V - Research programs in France
A new future for the French photovoltaic industry
By Eric Laborde
Président de PV Alliance et de Soleil en Tête
The French photovoltaic industry counts two major players: Photowatt and Ténésol (formerly Total-Énergie). Specialized in distribution networks and systems engineering, Ténésol has recently become involved in assembling photovoltaic panels; it holds a strong position in its historical markets (France’s overseas territories and departments). Photowatt, now celebrating its 30th birthday, is the only French manufacturer of solar wafers, cells and modules. It represents the kernel of France’s photovoltaic industry. Although some small businesses are emerging in this sector, very few of them are involved in technological activities capable of achieving an industrial scale. For a long time, Photowatt has been leading the market and has even risen to number five worldwide. It is thriving thanks to niche markets (isolated sites, solar pumps) with public funding (national or international).
The development of photovoltaic technology and the creation of the National Institute of Solar Energy
By Jean-Pierre Joly
Directeur général de l'INES
As in many other sectors, the development of the photovoltaic industry presupposes a combination of three factors: the existence of a thriving market; ongoing innovations so as to remain highly competitive in the world market; and sizeable investments in efficient, highly productive means of production. The first requirement has been satisfied thanks to the system for purchasing electricity. The creation of institutes such as the Institut National de l’Énergie Solaire (INES) is intended to fulfill the second. Promising signs can be observed with regard to the third factor, but much is still to be done in terms of investments in industry.
From low cost to high tech: Possible margins of technical progress in photovoltaics
By Jean-François Guillemoles
Directeur de recherche au CNRS et directeur adjoint à la Recherche de l'Institut de R&D de l'Energie Photovoltaïque (IRDEP) Unité Mixte de Recherche CNRS-EDF-Paristech
Photovoltaics is developing in response to three requirements: conservation of the environment, security in energy, and economic growth. Given this, the terawatt (TW) scale should be used to measure the magnitude of energy needs. Can solar, in particular photovoltaic, power meet these needs? This has nothing to do with the availability of solar energy — in a single hour, the sun sends to the earth as much energy as the electricity consumed by all of humanity during an entire year. Instead, it raises questions about the industrial deployment and, eventually, the availability of raw materials and land. The sustainable development of photovoltaic power implies wisely using resources (raw materials, energy and capital) and improving the efficiency not only of the process for transforming resources into photovoltaic units but also of the photovoltaic units themselves for converting light into electricity. It is worth noting that the predictable change of scale in the photovoltaic industry will have implications for this industry’s deployment on a large scale. This deployment depends on: the availability of technology, know-how, capital and raw materials; the cost of investments; the speed of implementation; and the rhythm of production of cells.