Renewable Could Be the Big Winner in the Post-Pandemic World

Undoubtedly, the global health crisis has affected every corner of the energy industry, including renewables, due to which renewable energy investments and installations slowed down. However, renewable energy and green technologies have the chance to emerge as the winners in the post-COVID-19 world.

According to a recent report from the International Energy Agency (IEA), demand for renewables is set to grow this year—and this will be the only energy source to grow in 2020 compared to 2019, in contrast to all fossil fuels and nuclear 

Some analysts argue that we may have already hit peak oil demand, considering that the pandemic might result in lasting changes in consumer behavior and lifestyles, such as the opportunity to work from home indefinitely. Even the bosses of BP and Shell do not rule out the notion that the world may have already seen peak oil demand. 

As per the IEA, the pandemic “is hurting – but not halting – global growth in renewable power capacity.” 

Supportive government policies will be crucial for renewables growth to recover quickly. Early indications from major economies, especially in Europe, are that the so-called green recovery will be the pillar of the policies for economic recovery.

Two of the biggest European economies—Germany and France—called for an acceleration of the green and digital transitions in May. The European Commission (EC) pledged US$630 billion (560 billion euro) to support investments and reforms, including to back the green and digital transitions and the resilience of national economies.

On the other hand, UK, which decided to leave EU, more than 200 companies and business associations called on the UK Government to deliver a clean, inclusive, and resilient recovery plan. Oil supermajors BP and Shell are among the signatories of the letter to the UK government.

While the push for greener economies has been gaining traction, oil companies and their stocks have been suffering in recent years from volatile oil prices and the investor push for accountability for global warming.

Imperial College Business School in partnership with the IEA recently published a report, which states that returns of renewable energy stocks have been significantly higher than returns on fossil fuel stocks.

The report showed that “publically-traded renewable power portfolios have posted significantly higher returns for investors and lower volatility over fossil fuels during the past ten years and during the COVID-19 crisis,” Imperial College London said in a statement.

Uncertainty in the oil and gas industry looks to be much higher than in renewables However, renewables is set for investment and installation setbacks in the short term. The longer-term prospects and economic rationale for renewable energy remain strong as costs continue to decline, while the specter of peak demand will continue to loom over the oil industry.

Solar Panel Recycling: Turning ticking time bombs into opportunities

Australia has certainly increased its appetite for solar power. As the average lifespan of a solar panel being approximately 20 years, the installations from the early 2000’s are set to reach their end-of-life. Will they end up in landfill or be recycled?

Not only the cost of recycling is higher than landfill, but also the value of recovered materials is smaller than the original. Therefore, the interest in recycling is limited. However, given the presence of heavy metals, such as lead and tin, managing the waste poorly can lead to another recycling crisis. A potential time bomb could present itself as an opportunity, however, if the global EV industry showed an interest in the recovered solar products.

The emission of pollution from the hazardous materials in the end-of-life panels can result in significant health issues, if released into the environment. To close the energy cycle, the next task of the solar panel industry is the safe recycling of end-of-life products. In the waste management hierarchy, however, re-use or value-added recovery/re-purposing is preferable to recycling.

The main contributor to the total weight of a typical crystalline silicon PV module is glass (75%), followed by polymer (10%), aluminum (8%), silicon (5%), copper (1%) and small amounts of silver, tin, lead, and other metals and components. Lead and tin, after leaching into soil and groundwater can cause health and environmental concerns, whereas copper, silver, and silicon present a value opportunity if recovered efficiently. So, the landfill option should be fully replaced with recycling to prevent environmental pollution and retrieve the valuable materials present in the panel.

Currently, considering all the impact of recycling, it isn’t be considered the economically favorable option. Therefore, economic incentives are required to accelerate this displacement.

Among the valuable materials in the panel, the best opportunity lies in silicon, given its considerably larger fraction and its ultra-high purity (99.9999% or six nines/6N). The solar-grade silicon from PV waste can be recovered for second-use applications in solar panels or repurposed for value-added application in the anode of the 3b generation of Lithium-ion batteries.

As the solar energy has gained momentum in the past few years, it is expected that more than 100,000 tonnes of solar panels will enter Australia’s waste stream by 2035. But one should think that whether it is the crisis or an opportunity?

If you look up solar panel recycling in Australia, there are a number of services. However, mostly they can recycle less than 20% by weight – the aluminium frame and the terminal boxes. Recycling the remaining 80%, including the precious silicon, is not currently offered in Australia, but it does not have to remain like that.

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OPEC Producer Algeria Aims to Build $3.6B Solar Power Projects

Algeria, an OPEC member, plans to install solar photovoltaic (PV) projects of up to US$3.6 billion worth, to produce renewable electricity for export and meeting increasing domestic power demand. It is expected that the solar power facilities will have a combined installed capacity of 4,000 megawatts (MW), the office of Prime Minister Abdelaziz Djerad said in a statement.

The project for the new solar power plants, called TAFOUK1, is part of the government’s plan to boost power generation from renewable energy sources. The whole project will require investments of between US$3.2 billion and US$3.6 billion, and is expected to create 56,000 jobs during the construction phase and 2,000 jobs during the operational stage, the government said.

The objective of this project is to meet the national demand for energy and to preserve our fossil resources, explains a press release from the Prime Minister. The project would also position itself on the international market, via the export of electricity at a competitive price, as well as the export of know-how, added the press release

The OPEC member generates most of its electricity from natural gas, and therefore plans to have those solar PV plants installed between 2020 and 2024, the prime minister’s office said.

Apart from meeting growing domestic demand and positioning Algeria to export electricity, the new solar projects will help it preserve its oil and gas resources, the government said.

In Algeria, the oil and gas industry is the backbone of the economy, accounting for 20 percent of GDP, and 85 percent of total exports, according to OPEC data. The oil price crash hit Algeria’s finances, and earlier this month, the country decided it would slash its budget for this year by 50 percent due to the drastically lower income from oil after the price crash.

Algeria – which was already feeling a squeeze on foreign exchange reserves even before oil prices collapsed in early May due to the Saudi-Russian oil price war and the global demand crash in the pandemic – is now taking drastic action to protect its finances this year.

Due to the low oil prices, another oil and gas producer in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, Oman, has recently decided to liquidate a solar power company it funded together with Shell because of the persistent depression in oil prices.

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Is Solar the Future of Pakistan?

If you are planning to have a burgeoning solar energy industry, you can think of many complicated things that a country needs, such as a strong supply of photovoltaic panels, a robust regulatory environment, and a transmission infrastructure that can handle the distributed generation of electricity efficiently. But the most important thing is the sunlight and how much of it the country gets.

Luckily, Pakistan is blessed with sunlight. According to the experts, an area needs a minimum of four hours of peak sunlight in order for solar energy to be economically viable. The goods news for Pakistan is most of the country has 300 or more sunny days every year. Peak sunlight is not just any time between sunrise and sunset: it is when daylight is bright, and directly shining on solar panels.

According to a 2012 research paper by Saifullah Khan, Mahmood-ul-Hasan, and Muhammad Aslam Khan of the University of Peshawar,  the overwhelming majority of the landmass of the country gets seven or more hours of peak sunlight every year. Their research examined data from 1931 through 1990 for most of the country.

Therefore, with so much to support solar energy in Pakistan, the idea of an alternative energy makes sense in the world for Pakistan as a major source of electricity. Given the precipitous collapse in the prices of photovoltaic cells, which has dropped by more than 60% over the past decade, one would assume that solar energy would be more of an energy source for Pakistan.

However, the numbers tell a different story. For the 12 months ending January 2020, solar energy accounted for just 0.58% of Pakistan’s electricity generation, or 722 gigawatt-hours, according to data from the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA). That NEPRA data, of course, does not count solar electricity generated by private homes and businesses, and not connected to the national transmission grid.

Considering the imports of solar panels, they have risen from as little as $1 million in 2004 to a peak of $772 million in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2017. While they have since dropped down to $409 million in fiscal 2019, the country’s imports of solar panels appear to be a strong upward trajectory, growing at an average rate of 15.9% per year in US dollar terms (22.6% per year in Pakistani rupee terms) in the five years between 2014 and 2019.

The rift

With all that solar energy availability, there are issues of import quantities and market shares. For starters, Pakistan has a problem where all parts needed to install solar panels are imported, which makes things difficult. Local industry stakeholders say that the government does not assist them to build these materials themselves, while the government claims that the industry imports sub-par materials. As a result, the dream for 5% solar electricity coverage remains an elusive one.

Conclusion

However, increasing competition in solar installation companies has meant to remain competitive, companies were doing everything to bring down their prices, and the easiest way to do this is to import sub-par materials.

New solar panels suck water from air to cool themselves down

Like humans, solar panels also don’t operate at full capacity when overheated. Therefore, researchers have now found a new way to make them cool and increase their power output.

It’s a simple way to retrofit existing solar cell panels for an instant efficiency boost.

Today, more than 600 gigawatts of solar power capacity exists worldwide, providing 3% of global electricity demand. That capacity is expected to increase over the next decade. Most use silicon to convert sunlight into electricity. However, typical silicon cells convert only 20% of the Sun’s energy and much of the rest turns into heat, which results in heating the panels by as much as 40°C. In addition, with every degree of temperature above 25°C, the efficiency of the panel drops.

In recent years, researchers have devised materials that can suck water vapor from the air and condense it into liquid water for drinking. The best is a gel that strongly absorbs water vapor at night, when the air is cool and humidity is high. When heat rises during the day, the gel releases water vapor. If covered by a clear plastic, the released vapor is trapped, condenses back into liquid water, and flows into a storage container.

Peng Wang, an environmental engineer at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and his colleagues thought of another use for the condensed water: coolant for solar panels. Their idea was that during the day, the gel would pull heat from the solar panel to evaporate water it had pulled out of the air the previous night, releasing the vapor through the bottom of the gel.  Then, the evaporating water would cool the solar panel as sweat evaporating from the skin cools us down.

The researchers found that the amount of gel depended primarily on the environment’s humidity. For example, in a desert environment with 35% humidity, a 1-square-meter solar panel required 1 kilogram of gel to cool it, whereas in a muggy area with 80% humidity, the gel required is only 0.3 kilograms of gel per square meter of panel.

This will result in a temperature of the water-cooled solar panel dropped by as much as 10°C. Not only this, the electricity output of the cooled panels increased by an average of 15% and up to 19% in one outdoor test, where the wind likely enhanced the cooling effect, Wang and his colleagues report today in Nature Sustainability.

“The efficiency increase is significant,” Zhou says. But according to him,  the rain could dissolve the calcium chloride salt in the gel, sapping its water-attracting performance. Wang agrees, but notes the hydrogel sits beneath the solar panel, which should shield it from rain.

Another design option, Wang says, is a setup that could trap and recondense water after it evaporates from the gel. That water could be used to clean any dust that accumulates on the solar panels, solving a second power-sapping problem at the same time. Alternatively, that same water could be stored for drinking, addressing another desperate need in arid regions.

Renewable energy has now produced more electricity in the U.S. than coal for 40 days straight

The lockdown has resulted in the low air pollution and also allowed the wild animals to roam around freely. Not only that, it has moved the U.S one step closer to clean energy.

It is surprising to know that during the corona virus that forced the whole world to stay-at-home, renewable energy is getting a boost. Power generation from sources like solar, wind and hydropower have overtaken coal-fired power in the United States for a record 40 straight days.

According to a report revealed by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), using data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), April's boost not only comes from low gas prices, warmer weather and more renewables added to the grid — but also from a massive decline in electricity demand as Americans staying at home. IEEFA said the findings mark an important "milestone" in the country's transition to clean energy.

The trend has started where renewables have overtaken coal. This is the first time renewables have surpassed coal in electricity generation every day in a single month. It measured the time between March 25 and May 3, but the trend is expected to continue. 

Previously, it was April 2019, which was the longest continuous stretch previously and saw nine consecutive days of renewables overtaking coal. In total, renewables beat coal on just 38 days last year. 

The other side could be the high cost of coal which in bad time is the first thing to cut when demand is down. It is pertinent to mention here that renewable is cheaper to operate and often supported by clean-energy regulations. In April, coal-fired generation held just 15.3% of the market share, a massive decrease. 

According to IEEFA, January marked the first time in decades. This also the first time in U.S. power industry — that coal's market share fell below 20%. In 2008, it held over half of the market. 

On the basis of the current situation, IEEFA predicted renewable energy in the U.S. could exceed coal annually in 2021, but is now hopeful the pandemic could accelerate the change — despite the Trump administration's efforts to revive the coal industry.

However President Trump has a different view about wind power generation.

"I never understood wind," the president said last year. "I know windmills very much. I have studied it better than anybody. I know it is very expensive... They are noisy. They kill the birds. You want to see a bird graveyard. Go under a windmill someday. You'll see more birds than you've ever seen ever in your life."

However, with the passage of time, wind and solar power have become increasingly efficient and affordable in recent years.

According to EIA, coal-fired power demand is projected to feel the brunt of the decline, potentially falling 20% due to the falling demand of overall electricity consumption to fall 3% this year, Renewables, however, are expected to grow 11% due to their low operating costs, EIA predicts. 

World’s Largest Solar Project Will Also Be Its Cheapest

As the solar energy is gaining momentum all over the world, Abu Dhabi has set a global record-low solar price as authorities confirmed the winning bid in a 2-gigawatt tender. The Al Dhafra project had five bidders, with the lowest offer coming in at 1.35 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour. Upon its expected completion in mid-2022, it is slated to be the largest single-site solar energy project in the world.

Abu Dhabi Power Corporation (ADPower) confirmed to GTM that the leading consortium consists of French energy giant EDF and the projects division of Chinese solar manufacturer Jinko Solar. However, EDF declined to comment when contacted by GTM.

ADPower will now negotiate a 30-year power-purchase agreement with EDF/Jinko. If an agreement will not be reached, ADPower, part of the Emirates Water and Electricity Company, can negotiate with . French utility Engie, Japan’s Softbank and Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power - the second-best bidder, which has won a string of large projects in the region, were among the final five shortlisted bidders.

Both JinkoSolar and EDF have strong track records in the United Arab Emirates. Jinko developed the 1.2-gigawatt Noor Abu Dhabi project in partnership with Marubeni, which came online last year.

Tenders in the Middle East and North Africa region usually see the state take majority ownership of the project. In the case of Al Dhafra, the winners will keep a 40 percent stake and receive a 30-year PPA contract that includes, construction, procurement, and operations and maintenance duties.

Why solar prices are so low in the Middle East?

The Gulf states have had more than their share of record-low solar prices of late. 

The race of solar energy is not limited to Abu Dhabi. In November, Dubai claimed the title with a 1.7 U.S. cents deal with ACWA Power for the next 900 megawatts of its Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum Solar Park. The project was started in 2013 with 13 megawatts of First Solar panels and is planned to generate 5 gigawatts by 2030.

Then in January, Qatar started the project with French oil firm Total and Japanese conglomerate Marubeni and went even lower with a bid of 1.6 cents per kilowatt-hour.

Three months later, United Arab Emirates again set the record of lowest offering.

There are numerous factors behind the ever-lower prices for solar in the Middle East, including great solar resources, large and flat sites, cheap-to-zero land costs, massive scale, and the cheap finance that comes with a 30-year PPA with a petrostate as the offtaker.

EDF has teamed up with UAE energy company and investor Masdar on a variety of projects, from solar thermal deployment in North Africa to an energy services company serving the whole region.

Big orders for the coronavirus-hit solar sector

So far, large solar tenders in the Middle East have motored on despite the current crises hitting the energy sector. Saudi Arabia is currently holding a 1.2-gigawatt solar energy tender of its own. First Solar, ACWA Power, Jinko, EDF and Marubeni are among the participants.

For module suppliers, such monster deals can fill a significant hole in their order books. The global module market is moving towards an oversupply situation, as Chinese factories ramp back up even as many key markets remain in lockdown.