Eco Evolution Blog

Germany has set yet another impressive record for solar power consumption! As solar power usage in Germany has  increased by 50% since last year, the country’s solar resources have pulled in a  phenomenal 14.7 terawatt-hours in the first six months of 2012 alone, which  amounts to 4.5 % of Germany’s power needs.

Solarpv panels on German homes

In 2011, Germany’s photovoltaic power reached just 19 Twh for the entire year,  5 Twh shy of productions during the first six months of 2012. The ambitious  spike in solar power consumption is thanks to a boom in solar systems being  installed across the country, with more being constructed each day.

Residential Solarpv installation

In just four months, the Germans have installed an additional 73,756 solar power  systems across the German countryside, with more sprouting up each week.  Combined, the new systems have an output of 2,328 megawatts. German homes and businesses already are responsible for 1.2 million  working photovoltaic plants, which have been installed over the past few years  with no incentives other than clean energy.

Solarpv array

In 2012, Germany will have reached a total of 28 GW of solar power capacity, which far exceeds other countries of  its size. With Germany’s lead, solar energy will reign in as the third largest  source of renewable energy, and possibly push past wind power and biogas should  other countries take lead and follow suit.

 Source: Clean Technica

South Dublin County Council are hosting  ‘Connect with Energy’,  an event aimed at providing advice and support to homes and businesses on how to save energy and money as well as create new job opportunities. The event is supported by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) and Intelligent Energy Europe (IEE).

With the purpose of supporting and engaging South Dublin homeowners, businesses, schools and other stakeholders in reducing their energy costs, saving money and creating jobs, SDCC is hosting a ‘Connect with Energy’ initiative from Monday 11^th to Friday 15^th June 2012 in ‘The Big Picture’ exhibition venue in Tallaght Town Centre, located beside the LUAS red line terminus.

This initiative will comprise an interactive energy centre in the Council’s ‘Big Picture’ multimedia venue; suppliers of energy related goods and services in the County will be available to meet with business people, homeowners, individuals interested in learning more about how they can save money on energy consumption within their businesses, workplaces, homes and other premises.

5kW Windturbine – residential, farm and commercial applications

The ‘Connect with Energy’ initiative will be launched on the morning of Monday 11^th June 2012. Minister Pat Rabbitte, Mayor Caitríona Jones and County Manager, Philomena Poole will launch the event.

The event has been organised as part of SDCC’s commitment to acting as a focal point for energy efficiency and is also represented by current involvement in a range of energy projects and initiatives. The two major programmes currently being undertaken by SDCC are the EU Intelligent Energy Europe (IEE) funded Leadership for Energy Action and Planning (LEAP) project and the Sustainable Energy Community (SEC) Programme supported by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI).

The (LEAP) project has a two year timescale and involves SDCC and eight other local authority partners across the EU. LEAP aims to increase the ability of EU local authorities to act as mentors in the promotion of sustainable energy measures in the local economy and so take a leading role in the move towards a low-carbon local economy. The key output of LEAP is the preparation of a countywide, cross sectoral Sustainable Energy Action Plan (SEAP), which will include a series of short, medium and long term actions addressing energy in South Dublin County to 2020 and beyond.

Solar Photovoltaic

The ‘Connect with Energy’ event is a key milestone in that process. The event will also showcase SDCC’s own track record in piloting and developing sustainable energy measures.

Following a competitive bid process, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) designated Tallaght as one of three new exemplar Sustainable Energy Communities (SEC) in Ireland. This programme, to operate for a five year period from the beginning of 2012, aims to develop a series of Irish communities as ‘living laboratories’ to establish a culture of energy innovation, by carrying out locally focused projects to increase energy efficiency and reduce energy costs.

Solar Thermal

The week long ‘Connect with Energy’ event will comprise exhibitions and targeted workshops. Energy advisers for homes and businesses will also be available during the event. A full programme of events will be advertised in the SDCC area during the coming weeks. All workshops and consultations will be registered events.

Mayor Caitríona Jones has welcomed the announcement of the event as an opportunity for local businesses and homeowners to become more energy efficient and reduce their energy costs. This will improve business competitiveness and job creation in South Dublin.

Energy Efficiency

Further information is available from the South Dublin Energy Team energyteam@sdublincoco.ie  or 01 4149000 ext. 2389 or go to website www.southdublinenergy.ie and follow link for Connect with Energy.

Click here to view or download the ‘Connect with Energy’ Brochure

To register for one of the free workshops, click on its title in calendar below: A description of each workshop is contained in each individual registration page.

Looking forward to meeting you at the exhibition and at our workshop.

German solar power plants produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity per hour – equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity – through the midday hours on Friday and Saturday, the head of a renewable energy think tank said.

The German government decided to abandon nuclear power after the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year, closing eight plants immediately and shutting down the remaining nine by 2022.

They will be replaced by renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and bio-mass.

Norbert Allnoch, director of the Institute of the Renewable Energy Industry (IWR) in Muenster, said the 22 gigawatts of solar power per hour fed into the national grid on Saturday met nearly 50 percent of the nation’s midday electricity needs.

“Never before anywhere has a country produced as much photovoltaic electricity,” Allnoch told Reuters. “Germany came close to the 20 gigawatt (GW) mark a few times in recent weeks. But this was the first time we made it over.”

The record-breaking amount of solar power shows one of the world’s leading industrial nations was able to meet a third of its electricity needs on a work day, Friday, and nearly half on Saturday when factories and offices were closed.

Solar Power Generation Germany May 26 2012

Government-mandated support for renewables has helped Germany became a world leader in renewable energy and the country gets about 20 percent of its overall annual electricity from those sources.

Germany has nearly as much installed solar power generation capacity as the rest of the world combined and gets about four percent of its overall annual electricity needs from the sun alone. It aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.

Source: Reuters

Read full story here.

solar photovoltaic and wind

Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) have just completed the following improvements to the Triple E programme. The following technologies have been added to the Triple E product register: Heat Pumps, Solar Thermal and Inverters.

SEAI have also revised the following criteria to allow products to be submitted under the Microgen programme: Wind Turbine Systems, Photovoltaic Systems and Co-generation.

Unfortunately in this recent update they did not include hydro. Hopefully we will see this added in the next update!

Products can now be submitted for consideration under the new technology headings. Equipment suppliers and manufacturers who want to submit eligible equipment to the ACA can do so through the online process.  The next submission round will close Friday 19th August 5.00pm

Overview of Accelerated Capital Allowance (ACA):

The ACA is a tax incentive for companies paying corporation tax and aims to encourage investment in energy efficient equipment. The ACA offers an attractive incentive whereby it allows companies to write off 100% of the purchase value of qualifying energy efficient equipment against their profit in the year of purchase.

This  incentive relates to the provision of certain energy-efficient equipment for use in a company’s trade  and the equipment must be included in the list of energy-efficient equipment approved by the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources in order to qualify under the scheme.

The energy-efficient equipment must be new. It must meet certain energy-efficient criteria and must fall within one of the  10 different equipment categories and 52 associated technologies.

A company is required to incur a minimum amount of expenditure on providing the equipment and this varies with the particular category to which the product belongs.

There is no requirement to obtain approval for expenditure on the energy-efficient equipment.

The normal self-assessment provisions apply. Once a company meets all of the required conditions, it can claim the allowance for the accounting period in which the equipment was first provided and used for the trade provided that the equipment is included on the published list at some stage during that accounting period. The allowance should be claimed on the company’s return of income (form CT1) and should be included along with any other wear and tear allowances for machinery and plant. A dedicated entry for this allowance is included in the CT1 return under the heading “Trading Results”.

Overview of the ACA equipment categories and eligibility criteria:

* Expenditure within each equipment category must, at the end of the accounting period, be equal to or exceed minimum expenditure amounts relevant for each category. Minimum expenditure can be over a range of projects, procurements etc as it only relates to overall company expenditure on BEMS technologies in the accounting period.

SEAI update the  Accelerated Capital Allowance (ACA) criteria on a regular basis.