The government is offering to pay 50% of the cost of photovoltaic installations. This ought to stimulate businesses.

If people are encouraged to start installing solar energy the following enterprises will be needed.

1) Suppliers of equipment, stockists of:

photovoltaic panels (pv)
inverters (changes dc current to usable AC)
cables

2) Installers

3) Financiers

The following trades and skills will be employed

electricians
builders - carpenters, roofers,

If solar water heating is also included in the government scheme then plumbers will be added to the list.

At present there are multi-skilled people who can install solar water heating kits: plumbing, electrical.

There has been a tendency for fly by night firms to install solar water heaters. They may not always provide good quality.

To study the sort of businesses that can be set up we may look at California where the state government also offers 50% of the cost of installing solar equipment - partly a response to the electricity crisis of last year. There is already a mature business milieu in the United States. There are some conventional businesses and some cooperatives.

I would like the CDA to attempt to encourage the formation of a solar coop, including the skills I have mentioned. There will probably be more scope for the installation end than the stocking end. There are already stockists.

There is probably no scope for manufacturing as this is a capital intensive business. Photovoltaics are best made on a very large scale in similar factories to the silicon chip industry. Solar water heating panels should also be made in large automated factories (and would be if the building regulations required them to be installed as standard in new houses). We don't have cooperative industries in Britain able to take this on - perhaps Mondragon could do it.

Finance

The mutual building societies and credit Unions might be able to develop new loan packages to finance some of these installations. It may be that an ownership business is needed, to sell the installations as hire purchase, or lease them, similar to Radio Rentals.

Size

The government is offering half the cost of installations above 500 watts. This would be enough to run quite a number of functions in a house. There are of course two main ways of using solar energy as described in my paper: https://www.angelfire.com/mac/egmatthews/geotherapy/climateaction.html

One is to store the energy in a battery. I do this myself, so that my solar system is not connected to the mains. However the 500 watt size that the government requires makes this expensive as lead acid batteries sufficient to store this amount (3000 kilowatt hours or more) would be very expensive. Therefore we are dealing with grid intertie systems. These feed electricity into the grid when they are generating and take it out when there is no sun. The electricity meter can run backwards. A small battery storage can be included, to provide emergency power if the grid fails. In areas where the grid supply is unreliable this storage might need to be bigger.

Thus we need people with the skills of connecting to the grid, and with the necessary safety certificates.

I can imagine a business with the ability to design and build (and later maintain) a system covering the roof of a school, or other large building. Maintenance would consist of testing the apparatus at regular intervals: pv panels, inverters, wiring, meters and so on - and replacing them if necessary. (PV panels have a long life and the rest is now very reliable after many years of development and testing).

What should CDA do about this?

I would like to see CDA act like the Impresa of the Mondragon cooperative corporation. This is the department that researches new business opportunities and helps people start up in new fields of activity. How exactly this would work I don't know. Possibly an advert aimed at the skilled people needed would help form a group of people capable of starting such a business. Possibly a solar expert is needed to form the nucleus of such a group.

Research
Clearly there are other researches needed. For example can such a business in present conditions really make money? Are there enough customers to make it profitable? Solar energy can still not compete with energy from nuclear, fossil fuels and wind. (Wind can compete with the other non-solar sources). The government's 50% capital payment can help.

Another problem is the amount to be paid by the electricity companies. Some companies offer less than the retail rate. Law or regulations are needed to make them offer the retail rate at least. Possibly they ought to offer the spot rate, which at times of peak load can rise above the flat tariff.

One possibility that might be tried is to combine a number of separate smaller installations to make an aggregate of 500 watts and get the government to recognise the total as appropriate for the capital assistance. The cooperative might own them as a unit, or an owner's cooperative might be created to own the installations, even though they are on separate buildings.

1. Ownership

For the purpose of getting government grants.

500 watts of solar power is probably more than a single house would carry. My house (see my paper on my web site) has about 120 watts. This is enough to run my solar water heater pump in the summer and one light for most of the year.

Smaller installations are therefore not eligible for the 50% grant.

There are other costs, for inverters and meters for connecting to the grid.

I suggest therefore that the CDA encourages people to form "Special Purpose Vehicles" to own the apparatus to an aggregate of 500 watts or more. The members would then rent their installations from the SPV.

2. Finance

I suggest that the Cooperative Bank or the Ecology Building Society be approached to see if a financing package can be devised. For example: "Wimborne Solar" might raise the 50% of a 500 watt installation by borrowing £1157 from the Ecology Building Society, and then rent them to house owners, with a repayment plan that will bring full ownership after a period.

3. Attracting members

This is the tricky part. So far I haven't got many people interested. Possibly some advertising in local press might find enough people to start.

4. Installation businesses

Probably at first there will not be enough customers for a full time business but it would be worthwhile looking for people who would form a part time group able to do installations of photovoltaic systems. If the number of people using solar energy increases this business will grow. Eventually we may be able to reach American levels of activity, where a number of full time businesses make a living.