Europe’s grid ‘can take more solar’

Proponents of solar generation say it could play a bigger role in Europe's energy mix, but they fear it is low on the priority list of policymakers and regulators. Vic Wyman reports

There are no technical barriers to the greater integration of photovoltaic (PV) schemes in Europe’s electricity networks, according to the sector’s European trade ­association.

Widespread deployment of PV could also help provide valuable grid services such as reactive and balancing power, says the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA).

PV and wind turbines generate electricity most productively at different times of the day and the year, so the two technologies could produce a steady 45 per cent of Europe’s electricity in 2030, the EPIA says in a recent study into large-scale grid integration of PV.

Yet, although PV could realistically provide 15 per cent of Europe’s electricity by 2030 with high security of supply, says the EPIA, a major change in policy is necessary to boost that to an achievable 25 per cent.

Growing confidence

The EPIA’s confidence reflects an annual growth of 57 per cent in the PV industry over the past ten years – and falling costs. The levelised European cost of decentralised PV electricity is ¤0.16/kWh (£0.13/kWh), it says, and ¤0.10/kWh in Italy and Spain.

The study says residential PV system prices are likely to fall from a maximum of ¤2.31/W in 2012 to ¤1.3/W in 2022. The average price of a 3kW domestic PV system should fall from about ¤6,000 (excluding VAT) today to below ¤4,500 before the end of the decade. In 2000, the price was ¤20,000.

PV is “becoming more and more attractive”, says Frauke Thies, the EPIA’s policy director. Yet the EPIA study, which the association says is the first into large-scale European grid integration of PV, says past underestimates of the potential of distributed PV have led to “sub-optimal” generation capacity planning and network operation. “The integration of PV can be improved by better forecasting,” says Thies. Aggregation of PV outputs means less variability of power generated, she adds.

Challenges and solutions

“Now we have challenges,” says EPIA president Winfried Hoffmann, adding. “But we have technical solutions to many of those.”

The development of smart networks could allow grid monitoring, self-regulating transformers and decentralised energy storage, says the EPIA. Its study says PV’s ability to provide active power reduction, ride-through of faults and voltage support is “vastly underrated” – PV is considered purely passive.

Some member states’ National Renewable Energy Action Plan targets have already been reached and others are likely to be by 2015, so the EPIA wants Europe’s network operators to take a more strategic approach. In particular, transmission system operators (TSOs) and distribution network operators (DNOs) must co-operate more, says Thies: “Sometimes they are not talking together let alone producing strategy together.”

The EPIA also wants: more system flexibility, including larger balancing areas and better forecasting; a new approach to overcome distribution bottlenecks; and fair financing for all.

Thies says regulatory changes are necessary at TSO and DNO level. “It has to change,” he says.

“We really need to change the regulators,” says Per-Olof Granstrom, secretary general of the European Distribution System Operators for Smart Grids and vice chair of the Global Smart Grids Federation.

Simon Muller, a renewable energy analyst at the International Energy Agency, also calls for more DNO-TSO co-operation: “That’s a really critical step.” He says DNOs vary greatly in their interest in PV.

However, Christian Buchel, of Electricite Reseau Distribution France and a member of the DNO directors’ gathering of European electricity industry association Eurelectric, says distributors have no problem with PV growth. “We are convinced that it is the right time to push for this,” says Buchel. “We should be more ambitious.”

MEP Judith Merkies has called on the European Commission to study small generation, which she says has received little attention. She says: “We need a microgeneration and energy policy.”

The prospects are not good. Tom Howes, deputy head of renewables and carbon capture and storage policy in the European Commission energy directorate, concedes that policymakers’ attention has been focused on carbon emissions and opening up Europe’s energy market. “No-one’s been doing enough,” he says. He also says the energy sector is resistant, and suggests the Commission has too much on its plate to ease the path for small-scale generation.

However, Thies has not lost hope. “It is not too late. It is a process,” he says.

This article first appeared in Utility Week’s print edition of 16th November 2012.

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