Public projects boost solar power firms

John Fitzpatrick is in a buoyant niche of construction. Building subsidized homes for disadvantaged people, with solar panelled roofs for environmentally friendly power, he is funded by the government.

A British scheme to halve the cost of installing solar panels on schools and social housing is aiding a solar power industry hit by the housing slump.

It's tiny compared with U.S. President Barack Obama's multibillion-dollar plans to invest in cutting carbon emissions from government facilities. But as a slowdown threatens many renewable energy projects, such schemes offer hope for jobs.

“We were set up four years ago to do the predominantly social housing. We're not seeing any tail-off,” says Mr. Fitzpatrick, site manager for the public housing arm of developers Croudace Homes.

New orders in the construction industry fell 14 per cent in the 12 months to November, 2008, according to the Office for National Statistics. In the third quarter of 2008, orders for private homes fell by one-third, while those for public housing were steady.

Pitting bailout funds against climate change to boost “green growth” has been a mantra among business and political leaders including those meeting in Davos, Switzerland, last week. Mr. Obama has promised to spend $150-billion (U.S.) on clean energy to create five million jobs.

Outside Mr. Fitzpatrick's office sprouts a clutch of half-built homes, each sporting glinting blue silicon solar panels, intended for people on low incomes in Guildford, a prosperous town 50 kilometres southwest of London.

Britain will spend about £80-million ($142.3-million Canadian) through 2010 subsidizing low-carbon energy generation on buildings, much of that on public housing. This has offset declining interest from residential home owners.

For private homeowners it costs up to £15,000 to install solar panels to meet half their electricity needs, not including grants, says privately owned Solar Century Holdings Ltd., which is supplying solar panels to the Guildford site.

That is a significant cost in a recession, especially when mortgage lenders are cautiously eyeing falling house prices. Solar Century says the cost will fall 10 per cent in the second half of 2009.

“New-build is probably at least 25 to 30 per cent down, year-on-year,” says Derry Newman, Solar Century's chief executive officer, referring to installations on new private homes.

“So we've redirected our efforts. We do a lot of work with schools, public buildings and government agencies. That's obviously a sector where revenue isn't falling. If anything, government is trying to push forward purchasing.”

Britain says it plans to bring forward to this year and next spending of £3-billion on houses and roads, to stimulate the economy. Prime Minister Gordon Brown has voiced support for measures to ease social housing construction to house 4.5 million people.

Under an economic stimulus plan, which may cost up to $900-billion (U.S.), Mr. Obama plans to spend tens of billions to cut carbon emissions from federal facilities.

The details are not yet clear but the plan being rushed through U.S. Congress is expected to include about $15-billion in grants and loan guarantees for local renewable energy generation and efficiency improvements.

“That will be enough to keep every renewable energy developer busy,” says entrepreneur Jigar Shah, founder of America's biggest operator of solar panels, Sun Edison LLC, a company he recently left to pursue fresh startups.

Tens of billions of dollars of clean energy tax breaks may also be included under the stimulus plans. The solar sector has the advantage of being zero-carbon emitting, but needs public subsidy because it is still more costly than rivals such as coal-fired power plants.

The British approach of supplying grants for residential home energy generation – also called microgeneration – differs from that in Germany, the world leader in solar power generation whose model Britain aims to emulate.

Germany guarantees prices for “green” electricity for 20 years, encouraging homeowners to feed their solar-generated electricity back into the national grid using a so-called feed-in tariff.

According to Citigroup analysts, German residential installations were proceeding “flat out” at the end of last year, reinforcing the success of the model. Britain is to launch a feed-in tariff for microgeneration from 2010.

Home installations are a slice of a bigger, global solar power market which includes large, centralized clusters of panels in solar parks.

Banks repairing their balance sheets are now reluctant to lend to such projects, so project developers say they are trying to “educate” alternative investors including any cash-rich private equity firms.

Coupled with Japan's goal to bring back solar power subsidies for homes, emergency stimulus funds may help bridge a difficult 2009 until renewable energy is revived by countries trying to meet pledges to fight climate change.

But a sweeping transformation of the building sector is still far off, for some.

“Carbon neutral homes? I think it's going to be impossible, absolutely impossible. I've no idea how we're going to achieve that,” says Mr. Fitzpatrick, referring to a British goal to make all new homes net zero carbon-emitting from 2016.

European solar power capacity nearly doubled in 2008 to about nine gigawatts, enough to power two to three million homes, according to the European Photovoltaic Industry Association. But that is still only about 1 per cent of European power generating capacity.

Hg