Architecture of Territory: Solar

Solar power for electrical energy has been promoted by the state since the 1980 Energiewende in Germany. But the complexity of stakeholders involved in the construction of solar energy production sites as well as the existing land use legislations complicate the quick expansion. Moving between scales, we aim to identify different forms of solar energy production, their effectiveness and its repercussions (both tangible and intangible), among them solar photovoltaics, a hybrid technology which might provide alternatives scenarios for the future of German territories.

Germany: A Leader In Solar Energy?

The promotion of renewable energy began in Germany in the 1990s and was firmly anchored in 2000 with the Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz (EEG). An instrument was conceived that is constantly being developed further. The aim is to increase the share of renewable energies in the electricity supply to at least 80 % by 2050 and to manage the phase-out of nuclear energy. Germany is therefore one of the first countries to feed energy from PV plants directly into the electricity grid, as it also aims to reduce dependence on international oil and gas imports.

To date, Germany spends around 45 billion euros annually on imports of coal, oil and natural gas. In addition, the expansion of renewable energies will create an average of 440,000 jobs between 2022 and 2035. Future electricity consumption will also increase due to current developments such as e-mobility and heat pumps, which will soon account for a large share of electricity consumption.

Germany has seen great potential in solar energy, which is economically as well as politically lucrative. Solar energy accounts for a remarkable 9 % of electricity generation in Germany and sets a high bar in international comparison.

Although Germany is one of the top countries in the international comparison with 9 % of electricity production from photovoltaics, this diagram clearly shows how small the share of solar power is compared to the total energy consumption in Germany. Mineral oil products currently account for the largest share due to mobility. In the future, however, the automotive industry will increasingly focus on e-cars and with time also completely abandon the combustion engine. This change will depend heavily on the power supply and its reliability.

Solar plants consume space that is usually not available in urban areas and costs too much money. For this reason, solar parks are mainly placed in rural areas, close to consumers or large cities. The area between Berlin and Hamburg is a hotspot for large-scale solar energy production as well as in the south around Nuremberg and Munich. In the cities, PV systems are mainly found on the roofs of buildings. However, these only account for a fraction of the energy generated by the solar parks.

EVOLUTION OF THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF SOLAR ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE
The fluctuations in ground-mounted and roof PVs is heavily informed by the amendments to the German Renewable Energy Sources Act, EEG.
Source: Fraunhofer ISE, 2022 / MaStR, 2022

Germany’s installed photovoltaic capacity, its average power output, produced electricity, and its share in the overall consumed electricity, showed an exponential growth for more than two decades up to about 2012. The government has created policies that enabled small-scale projects to feed back into the national electricity grid.

Beginning from 2000, the introduction of the Feed-in Tariffs (FIT) scheme by the new German Renewable Energy Sources Act, EEG sparked the rapid uptaking of renewable energies like PV. However, at this point, it does not mean that the goal of democratising electrical energy is achieved, as solar energy is still used as a way for big corporations of sustainable energy producers to exacerbate the existing economic and social inequalities. Since 2012, growth has slowed down significantly due to major tariff cuts in PVs and Free-standing photovoltaic systems on nature conservation areas were excluded from remuneration.

The overall trend also shows a self-informed economic feedback by the government as it struggles with funding the increasing difference between generators of renewable energy and the retail price of electricity rates as well as balancing social equality. In the process of the achieving climatic agendas, the limitations of the government is thus shown.

Solar Energy and the Energiewende 1980

EVOLUTION OF THE MWP INSTALLED AND THE AVERAGE PRICE OF PV MODULES, 1990–2021
Source: Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Klimaschutz, 2022 / Fraunhofer ISE, 2022

Even prior to the 1990s, the core ideology of Energiewende has already been present with the “pan-European upsurge of protests against glaring inequalities and injustices of industrial capitalism during and after the 1968s” (The Subversion of Politics, Katsiaficas, 1997). The subsequent resistance to nuclear power also gave rise to the Autonomen which “developed forms of self-managed consensus rather than relying on powerful individuals or hierarchical organisations” (People’s Power, Dawson, 2020). The dynamics of German politics in energy questions was one that sprung up from the grassroots. Renewable energy like that of solar was a crucial yet extremely precarious medium of the Energiewende because of the fluctuations in costs ramifications of PV industries moving parallel with changes in political power and societal influences.

1973: Germany’s First Oil Crisis
Previously, in the 1950s and 1960s, energy policy had been viewed primarily from the perspective of economics. Between 1950 and 1973, energy consumption increased annually by 4.5 %, with oil playing a particularly important role, which became the most important energy source during this period. At the same time, energy consumption was perceived as a central indicator of economic prosperity, which led to great fears of economic decline, since energy consumption in Western Europe was not growing as quickly as in Eastern Europe. The oil price crisis of 1973 demonstrated the industrialized countries ‘ dependence on fossil energy, particularly on fossil fuels.

1973: Green Party Founded
The political party The Greens (German: Die Grünen) sprung out of grassroots mobilisations from the wave of New Social Movements that were active in the 1970s, including environmentalist, anti-war, and anti-nuclear movements which can trace their origin to the student protests of 1968. The party sought to give these movements political and parliamentary representation, as the pre-existing peoples parties were not organised in a way to address their stated issues.

1974: Research on Solar Panels is Growing
After its successful use in the aerospace sector, the development of photovoltaics has continued with the aim of being used on land. Multiple research centres have been created and the race for efficiency has begun.

1980: Debut of Solar Panel on Ground and not in Space
Development of the first Solar Cells to be used on Earth

1980: Energywende
“Energy transition: growth and prosperity without oil and uranium”
A rural community in a conservative part of the country rose up in opposition to government plans to “develop” the area through the construction of a nuclear power plant and the attraction of new industries to buy all the new power.

1986: Chernobyl disaster
Large parts of Germany were covered with radioactive contamination from the Chernobyl disaster and Germans went to great lengths to deal with the contamination. Germany’s anti-nuclear stance was strengthened. From the mid-1990s onwards, anti-nuclear protests were primarily directed against transports of radioactive waste in “CASTOR” containers.

1991: Electricity Feed-in Law
The 1991 Electricity Feed-in Law, the first green electricity feed-in tariff scheme in the world, ensured grid access for electricity generated from renewable energy sources. Moreover, it obliged utilities operating the public grid to pay premium prices (feed-in tariffs) for the electricity supplied from these renewable energy power plants. Although the act helped stimulate the rapid growth of wind power in Germany, deployment of solar power was initially disappointingly low, a fact that reflected the low levels of remuneration for solar at the outset.

2000: German Renewable Energy Sources Act, EEG
A replacement of the original Electricity Feed-In Law under a coalition government led by the Green Party. The original legislation guaranteed a grid connection, preferential dispatch, and a government-set feed-in tariff for 20 years, dependent on the technology and size of project. The scheme was funded by a surcharge on electricity consumers, with electricity-intensive manufacturers and the railways later being required to contribute as little as 0.05 cents/kWh. The EEG has generally been regarded as a success and led to the particularly rapid uptake of two renewable energy technologies: wind power and photovoltaics.

2004: EEG Amendment
Together with the PV Interim Act (2003), the EEG Amendment from 2014 raised photovoltaic tariffs and in particular for small rooftop installations, to compensate for the ending of low-interest loans under the expiring 100,000 roofs program. The limit on free-standing photovoltaic systems exceeding 100 kWp and the 1000 MWp cap on photovoltaic installations in total were both removed. Furthermore, detailed measures were introduced to deal with market complexities, windfall profits, and the incentives for innovation and cost reduction. Eligible projects may no longer degrade ecologically sensitive areas.

2009: EEG Amendment
The 2009 amendments were undertaken alongside a boom in renewable electricity uptake. In 2009, renewables accounted for 16.3% of total electricity generation, up from 9.3% in 2004. More specifically, the photovoltaic tariffs were reduced somewhat, but not enough to affect uptake. The degression for PV was tightened from 5% to 8–10%, depending on the size of installation. A new ‘self-consumption incentive’ granted a fixed tariff of 25.01 cents/kWh for electricity consumed by a PV operator within their own house. A ‘flexible degression cap’ was introduced, under which the degression rate could be adjusted to keep the uptake of photovoltaics within a specified corridor.

2010: PV Act
It was becoming clear that action on the photovoltaic remuneration was necessary. The growth in photovoltaics had exceeded all expectations. In 2009 alone, 10600 MWp of capacity was installed. As a result, the support costs had skyrocketed. The legislation introduced a dramatic reduction in photovoltaic tariffs, cutting these between 8 and 13% depending on the installation type, followed by a second cut of 3%. The self-consumption incentive was significantly raised to around 8 cents/kWh and eligibility extended to systems up to 500 kWp. The feed-in rate itself was dependent on the system size and the proportion of demand that was consumed on-site.

2012: EEG Revised
The new EEG sought to advance the dynamic expansion of renewable electricity generation, control the rising costs associated with the scheme, and enhance market and grid integration, while adhering to the principles of a feed-in system. The revised system includes a market premium scheme, the market premium was intended to prepare renewables for the market and to eventually lower their dependence on explicit policy measures. The rising shares of variable renewable generation had led to concerns about the ability of the electricity system to cope. The new act included measures for the grid integration of photovoltaic systems. Grid operators could now limit the feed-in of photovoltaics in times of grid overload, with the plant operators receiving compensation for their loss of revenue.

2013: PV Act
The tariff cuts were up to 30%, with the tariff cuts scheduled in the EEG (2012) for 1 July 2012 advanced and tightened from their original 15%. A hard cap on the total photovoltaic capacity was introduced, set at 52 GWp. The self-consumption privilege was removed for new installations, as grid parity was already met

2014: PV Tendering Scheme
A system of competitive bidding in which generators of renewable power must compete against one another to win contracts from the state. The goal of these competitive bidding laws is to cut the cost of renewable power but the effect has been to dramatically undermine the decentralized and democratic character of the energy transition since small renewables companies and community-based cooperatives generally lack the capital to submit artificially inexpensive bids. The result has been a shocking crash in levels of investment and deployment of renewables.

Is PV Really Renewable?

Through the study of dynamic flow of materials, energy and processes, we observe that most of the materials used for the production of PV systems are not available locally. This leads us to the question of whether PV systems are really renewable or not. If we look at the potential energy that could theoretically be produced with PV systems, it is remarkable to see that 80 % of the potential is lost as energy loss. The 20 % that could be generated therefore only account for 9 % of the electricity demand in Germany. 10 % of this must be deducted to cover the grey energy in order to do justice to the resources used. Silicon for example requires up to 1500 megajoules per kilogram which is an immense amount of energy going mainly for extraction, production and transport.

Speaking of energy loss, there is still a bleak of hope when we observe the technological improvements of PV cells over the years (and the years to come). National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) reveals that although most solar PV arrays currently use vary in efficiency from around 10–20 %, efficiency values as high as 44.4 % have been obtained in experimental settings by Sharp and NREL. Despite most of the high efficiency technologies running under high laboratory supervision and not at full-scale production, all 5 research-cell technologies have efficiency levels that are rising at exponential rates. However, it is critical to note that the majority of efficiencies higher than 25 % belong to large private corporations like Sharp, Boeing and Panasonic. This is heavily attributed to huge financial resources and short-term incentives of maximising profits.

GREY ENERGY AND CARBON FOOTPRINT OF SOLAR ENERGY

ALUMINIUM ORE, GUINEA
Source: Wirtgen Group

SILICA SAND, USA
Source: Martin Marietta

ACTUAL CO₂ FOOTPRINT OF EACH PV PANEL RAW MATERIAL

Intensive technological expertise is required to develop a PV semiconductor for the production of these sustainable solutions. As a result, the sourcing of the materials, often mined and excavated from territories in the global south (who do not have the technical capacity to develop PV). Hence, the shipment to Asian countries (where there are the relevant machineries) are prevalent. They are subsequently developed and shipped to Germany. This process is takes aeons and one should start to reflect on the Carbon Footprint it has on the climate as a result of this global shipments.

It is also important to note the changes of apparent and real carbon footprint of each PV panel raw material after considering their respective grey energy factor.

Can the efficiency of solar cells really outweigh the ecological detriments from material production for technological solutions in the long run?

Solar Energy Production in the Rheinische Revier: 3 Case Studies

Jülich Solar Tower

Looking into an unconventional way of harnessing solar energy, Jülich Solar Tower is the first and only German solar power plant utilizing concentrated solar power (CSP), a solar power technology that does not use photovoltaics.

The sun’s rays are collected via heliostats distributed over an area of 100 ha and concentrated in the receiver tower. In the process, energy is generated with the help of heat. The Jülich Solar Tower began producing electricity in 2008 and is still used today for experimental and demonstration purposes.

A main field of research at SIJ is the optimisation of absorber structures to achieve the highest possible efficiency and minimise energy loss. In the second tower, however, experiments such as synthesis gas (syngas) on an industrial scale are also being researched and developed.

Solarpark Inden

Solarpark Inden is a photovoltaic park with a calculated maximum output of 3.9 MW in the Watt Peak model and was the largest solar power plant in North Rhine-Westphalia as of December 2011. 16,236 solar modules (99×164 cm) were set up on an area of 10 ha, each aligned at an angle of 30 degrees to the south. Within six months, 9.84 million euros were installed here, 57.67 % of which was borne by Rurenergie GmbH (belonging to the district of Düren ) and 42.33 % by the company F&S solar concept from Euskirchen.

SUNfarming Morschenich-Alt

Sunfarming is an Agri-Horti-Photovoltaic research system which includes PV trackers and integrated rainwater harvesting. The system consists of five different structures, by varying orientation and mobility, while a under heavy surveillance of automatic phenotyping. Plowing, sowing and harvesting is performed together with local farmers.

The most tangible parameter determining the effectiveness of solar photovoltaics is the amount of land use. Comparing between the three infrastructures, Jülich Solar Tower is the least efficient in generating electricity. Solarpark on the other hand is efficient but does harness the potential of the land. Sunfarming is relatively efficient and allows hybrid land use.

The Potentials and Challenges of Agrivoltaics

Increasingly frequent heat waves in Central Europe have caused the annual irradiation in Germany to increase drastically overtime. This makes it the more favourable for the use of Agrivoltaics as they could not only produce more electrical energy through greater amounts of solar energy absorbed, but also improve crop cultivation by reducing evaporation and protection against intense solar radiation.

While the technical and economic feasibility of Agri-Voltaics has been proven in many countries, the current regulatory framework is probably the greatest hurdle to exploiting its potential. In Germany, for example, the dual use of land for photovoltaics and agriculture is currently not defined in law and the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) does not provide adequate compensation. Is it that regulations should not be so precise at ‘controlling’ machines, but rather consider the typological value as a whole?