Follow Germany: streamlined for beautiful

Germany, a leader in renewable energy, recently set a world record when it produced 22 GW of power on May 26th, 2012. At that point in time, half of the country's electricity was generated from solar. Germany's current capacity for solar energy reaches about 28 GW and the country aims to reach 66GW by 2030.

By the end of 2011, Germany had about 21.6 times more solar power installations per capita than the United States.

Why is it that Germany, which has a much lower level of solar radiation than the United States, proportionally dwarfs the U.S. when it comes to solar installations?

What is Germany Doing Differently?

In addition to creating rewarding financial incentives for residential solar, such as their well-known Feed-in Tariff, the streamlined permitting process in Germany has given way to widespread adoption of solar energy.

Germany has successfully scaled basic design and installation processes, driving down the cost and wait-time associated with residential solar. Moreover, the country has actually eliminated permitting for standard residential solar, which is part of the reason residential solar is so prominent in the country.

Standardizing permitting and installation procedures to streamline these processes has helped make Germany a world leader in solar energy. In Germany, it's not uncommon for a person to contact a solar company and have a system on their roof in less than a week- sometimes in a few days.

Meanwhile, in the United States, customers frequently find themselves forking over hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in fees, undergoing a series of unnecessary inspections, and waiting weeks to have standard photovoltaic systems installed on their homes.

The United States needs to follow Germany's lead by streamlining the permitting process for standard residential solar applications. This would make residential solar considerably easier, cheaper, and more convenient for consumers in the United States.

Permitting in the United States:

Though the price of solar products is decreasing and solar adoption is steadily increasing in the United States, the costly, inefficient permitting processes are a burden to the buyer and impede progress of the solar industry at large.

Before installing a residential solar system, a permit must be obtained from the local Authority Having Jurisdiction, also known as an AHJ. Typically, permit applications for standard residential solar installations must be submitted to the AHJ in person. SunRun recommends a standard online application for solar permitting, which would drastically simplify the process. It would be much more efficient if all AHJs utilized a standard web-based application to streamline this process.

The permitting process varies too much across geographical location. This inconsistency between AHJs breeds a series of avoidable obstacles that are holding back solar adoption in the United States.

With so many permitting authorities sprinkled across the country, the discrepancy between standards produces hoops to jump through. It seems that every city or Authority Having Jurisdiction has a different interpretation of codes and standards. Some even craft their own legislation.

Applications often undergo a succession of reviews by multiple departments, which commonly conduct their own inspections. Permit applications are then subjected to various municipal inspections that are neither necessary nor efficient. In an admirable attempt to guarantee safety, local municipalities frequently include extensive fire inspections and components to the system (i.e. disconnects) that are not needed, further complicating the process.

Unnecessary inspections in conjunction with other soft costs associated with residential solar create a barrier to adoption for potential customers. Some municipalities are able to process a permit for less than $300, while others call for thousands. Part of the problem is that all these AHJs have different fees that are often based on their own set of criteria, including those unnecessary inspections.

More often than not, the sum of these fees is too high because they are not in line with the actual processing cost to the Authority Having Jurisdiction. SunRun reports that customers incur an average cost of $2,516 for permitting and inspection of a residential solar system. [i] Most of these soft costs are not necessary for standard residential solar systems.

While an applicant for a residential system in Germany may only wait four days to have a system installed, this process takes weeks in the United States. Sometimes months.

This inconsistency between jurisdictions creates difficulties for buyers, installers, and AHJs.

Installers have more important things to do than deal with municipalities that aren't knowledgeable about photovoltaic installations. Cities have enough on their plates to try to come up with their own filing systems, codes, and protocol. Customers need a convenient, cost-effective system of permitting that will get the solar system on their roof as soon as possible.

The entire solar industry suffers due to the lack of structural coherence in the permitting processes in the United States. With a standardized system in the United States, AHJs will operate more efficiently, saving everyone valuable time and resources.

What the United States needs to do:

Systemic changes need to be made to encourage the adoption of renewable energy. These systemic changes can and must come from the Department of Energy. The Department of Energy has already established a plan to streamline permitting through the Solar America Board for Codes and Standards, also known as the Solar ABCs.

According to the New York Times, the Solar ABCs "links policy makers, solar panel manufacturers, installers and consumers to create a central clearinghouse for information on solar building codes and best practices."

Standard residential solar systems are the same whether you're in California or Montana, so why doesn't the Department of Energy incentivize municipalities to adopt standardized codes and protocol set forth by the Solar ABCs? Eliminating the added inspections by local AHJs and streamlining the whole process will make solar adoption more workable for everyone.

If the permitting protocol was homogeneous across the country, reducing the soft costs and wait time for standard residential systems, solar energy would be able to reach an extensively broader demographic. This can only be possible with a cooperative effort on the part of policy makers and industry leaders, changing this dynamic from a conflict to a united course of action.

The BIG Picture:

Grid parity is the point at which the levelized cost of solar electricity is less than or equal to the cost of grid electricity.

The structural inefficiency of solar permitting raises the overall cost of solar installation for consumers, pushing grid parity further into the future.

Grid parity should be a priority for our society, yet the structural barriers encountered in the permitting processes across the nation do not reflect that grid parity is of much concern. Just as the wait time for the individual's installation is dragged out, the timeframe between now and grid parity is extended.

By implementing an expedited permitting process nationwide, we can tear down many of the existing barriers to solar adoption in the United States.

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Hydro power has great potential; Many critics

Hydropower is climate friendly, but it remains a controversial energy source. It is not always the case, the renewable energy has a positive impact on the environment, such as some large dam projects have proven.

People have used for more than 2,000 years of water generated energy. Today electricity from water produces 15 percent of global electricity production - accounts for more than nuclear energy. Other renewable energy sources such as wind and solar energy, making only 4 percent.

Potential of water, however, is exhausted, and it is an attractive alternative to energy to CO2 levels.

Studies show that water power could meet almost all the planet energy. But that's not likely.

"Cost benefit only, according to André Böhling Greenpeace Germany doesn't". "Water as a renewable energy has on in the differentiated form - be considered on a case by case basis."

The different results of large dam projects illustrate the Böhling.

Old dam, new energy

Such a project in Honduras called the Esperanza provides hydroelectric plant an example of ideal as water and can be used effectively. The system draws on existing dam structures, takes a minimum amount of space, and the positive effects of energy production constantly are obvious.

Canadian businessman Ron Turner directs the project, which clean energy award has been nominated for the world. The plant is the first project in the world to sell its carbon offsets under the Kyoto Protocol of 1997.

But many large dam projects in environmental, economic and social disasters, to develop always much too intrusive on nature and society.

The Indian Sardar Sarovar dam and the three Gorges Dam in China symbolize environmental destruction and disregard for human rights instead of environmental progress.

Dams, flooding forests are particularly problematic. Over the years let the rotting plants, they leave large amounts of methane - a gas, has the worse effects on the climate than carbon dioxide.

Despite their dubious record, continue to large dams are built in India, China and South America.

Discussions to end

In much of the West, such projects are no longer possible.

"The debate on major new projects in Germany past", Harald Uphoff said by Germany's National Association of hydropower plants.

The growth opportunities that remain, likely on new methods and technologies. Experts test currently special buoys that can be hung up in rivers with little environmental impact.

Another focus is the often more than 50-year-old modernisation plants to generate more power, and the project in Honduras offered an example of how this can work.

Potential for Germany?

Accounting for 3.5 percent of Germany's electricity, hydropower is the country of the second largest form of renewable energy after wind. But the economic and ecological sense more water power facilities is a separating theme.

"In the long term, people not significant increases in water-power production, should expect," said Andre Böhling.

Others disagree with, as Uphoff, who argues that "such attitudes lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Industry power argue that water at least might provide a third more power in Germany. Their hopes lie largely with miniature plants - small, decentralized systems with outputs up to five megawatts. Are responsible for 20 percent of hydropower in Germany.

"Such facilities are often enough provide energy for small communities", Uphoff said.

15,000 unused Web sites

The Federal Government supported a study 2008 used by German rivers and streams, the discovery of 15,000 embankments and barrages for power generation. Industry wants water to see facilities account for so much energy production as nuclear power plants, but ecological concerns stand in the way.

A 2009 adopted German legislators with incentives for electricity production in environmentally friendly ways. Those who are their small hydropower facilities with environmentally sound measures, such as the Fischtreppen, equip get more money for each Watt, which contribute to the power supply.

Energy challenges for post-nuclear Germany

Wind turbine in Northern Germany. (Photo: Gerry Hadden, the world)

Germany plans to phase out nuclear energy and replace them with renewable sources such as wind and solar energy.

History of Gerry Hadden, PRI's the world. Listen audio-up for full story.

Germany plans to shut down its last nuclear power plant in 2022. It is an ambitious timetable, but his plan is even more ambitious that to replace energy from renewable sources such as wind and solar energy. If the plan works, in 40 years, 80 percent of its power from renewable energy sources get Germany.

To achieve its goals, hard decisions and costly investments must make Germany. Jan Espins, head of a renewable energy Consortium in Hamburg, Germany, says the Government must do more to encourage investment in renewable energy.

The country must also great changes in its power infrastructure facilities, adds Espins. In other words, everything had to the cable and the towers to transport new force.

"We have new capacities in the North of Germany and we have our load centers in the South," he said. "We need to transport electricity." "And at some point we must definitely more grid capacity."

It is a question of feasibility and money. Beefing up Germany's electricity costs is also over a $100 billion.

But it is also a question of acceptance by the public. The studied for Werner Beba, a professor at the University of Hamburg, renewable energy, love, German the idea of renewable energy. Things like power lines are what they don't like.

"For example, a strong grid from the North Sea Germany, southern Germany, energy from the off shore wind farms bring buildings are", said Beba. "And there are 8000 complaints against that."

It is even resistance to the wind turbines themselves: they are a light on the landscape, some people say. Others worry that they kill birds, and a growing number of people claim that they can make you sick.

Read the rest of this story on TheWorld.org.

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Germany extended research and forms wind network of experts

The new group, consisting of more than 400 scientists, engineers and administrators, will network with other research institutes in the country's wind energy industry. After his "Wind energy 2020" initiative, the group plans several projects for the development of systems and infrastructure that expands the use of wind energy in cost-efficient, sustainable and competitive way.

The move Germany is renewable energy, in particular wind energy, in the course of the Fukushima nuclear accident gives greater priority. The goal of the Federal Government is using renewable energy sources by 2020 just to produce electricity at least 35 percent of the country.

ForWind combines the wind energy research programs at German State universities of Bremen, Hanover and Oldenburg. IWES Fraunhofer is made up of some 60 institutions focusing member of the Fraunhofer Society, on different fields of applied research. The research agency receives about 30 percent of its funding from the German State with the rest of the work.

Combined infrastructures of German universities and Fraunhofer IWES together with more than 30 networked research institutions is equipped to support both basic and applied research projects. This infrastructure includes a supercomputer for flow simulations, the world's largest wave Flume and a test system for rotor blades, the up to 90 metres in length. The planned scope of the research is extensive and ranges blades meteorology and rotor energy to the drive train and supporting structure.

"By combining our research activities, we are able to keep pace with international research collaborations, which set the tone in Denmark and the United States", said Andreas Reuter, Director of Fraunhofer IWES.

ForWind and Fraunhofer working already together to organize a wind power cluster of more than 300 research institutes and wind energy companies in Northern Germany in a business and research network.

Joint programme on wind energy in the European Energy Research Alliance and the wind energy technology platform have participated together in projects of two major European initiatives, both partners.

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