“Electrify everything” and the resurgence of solar thermal
A thought piece by Jonny Williams, Strategy and Partnerships Lead.
Virtu decarbonising the hot water and electricity demand of a university’s student accommodation building in the UK.
The pathway to “net zero” and the clean energy transition has been enabled by the widescale deployment of renewable energy technologies. Globally, an increased capacity of renewable energy resources is reducing the CO2 emissions associated with the burning of fossil fuels to generate energy.
A momentum around the concept of “electrify everything”, the electrification of many aspects of our economy, such as transport and heat, is growing. However, there are practical concerns, such as grid capacity, which need to be addressed.
This transformation is happening quickly and renewable energy systems, notably wind and solar PV farms, have been deployed at an impressive rate, with system price reductions consistently outpacing predictions.[1] The cost-competitiveness of renewable energy resources, compounded by increasingly rigorous carbon reporting regulations, has encouraged innovation and disrupted outdated energy markets, often to the benefit of commercial and private customers.
Many organisations consider the electrification of transport and heating sectors to be the future. Utility companies are trying to pivot away from selling gas, by increasing their focus on electrical energy to meet power, heat, and transport requirements. A number of industry leaders are embracing the challenge, through impressive technical and commercial innovation, such as digitalisation, smart grids and energy storage.
Meanwhile, the UK Government ‘Heat and Buildings Strategy’ focuses on the future role of heat pumps, with associated policy support both underway and proposed. There is support for other approaches, but one must search quite hard to find it. More concerning is the Government’s expectations regarding price reductions – heat pumps are a mature technology often manufactured and sold by large corporations. In reality, price reduction potential through supply chain efficiencies is limited and installed costs will remain high given the backdrop of skills shortages.[2]
However, for the “electrification of everything” to work there are significant challenges to overcome, and the use of electricity to decarbonise heating remains particularly stubborn. Some of the significant challenges include:
Installation of additional capacity, including more solar farms and wind power (both on- and off-shore).
Requirement in many cases for retrofitting of buildings so that they are suitable for heat pumps.
Currently, there is a limited number of skilled workers available to deploy high quality heat pump installations. This often leads to heat pumps not being installed to a standard that enables high performance.
To provide heating, using renewables to generate high grade electrical energy, only to then produce lower grade heat energy is an inefficient approach.
Similarly, the transition to a hydrogen led economy will take a long time and huge investments in infrastructure. Also, hydrogen is better suited to decarbonise hard-to-abate sectors, such as heavy industries.
The full transition to greater electrification will take a long time. It is most likely that this will take too long to meet 2050, let alone 2030 net zero goals.
In contrast, solar thermal, which is a mature and cost-effective technology with an established engineering and installation base, has several benefits:
Heat generated by solar thermal is entirely zero carbon, and users are no longer dependant on buying a large proportion of their fuel or power from utility companies. By extension, this provides protection against volatile energy markets.
For a typical UK or North European installation, around 40-60% of the heating and hot water requirement can be met by solar thermal technologies. The installation of a solar thermal system today halves the end user’s gas bill and carbon emissions from heating and hot water. Installations in sunnier locations can yield even greater benefits.
Solar thermal is versatile and can support many different customer types – multi-residential (nursing homes, student accommodation, apartments), industrial processes, hotels, food and beverage, agricultural, hospitals, etc.
Solar thermal presents a no regrets approach to decarbonisation for those with significant heat requirements. It is much more efficient to generate heat locally if you have a constant heat demand, rather than use precious low carbon electricity to do the same job.
The technology is generally used in combination with other approaches to provide hot water and/or space heating. For an end user, solar thermal provides a clear decarbonisation pathway – for example, a building with a gas boiler can install solar thermal now and slash emissions, then tackle the remaining carbon at a later date with a heat pump or green hydrogen.
Modern solar thermal can achieve temperatures in the range of 50-250⁰C – suitable for many industrial processes and non-domestic applications, including low and medium temperature industrial applications.
Professionally designed solar thermal systems can provide a sizeable proportion of heating and hot water requirements through spring, summer, and autumn, and even make a tangible contribution during winter – all without burning any fossil fuels or paying for additional electricity.
The benefits of solar thermal for public sector, commercial and industrial applications are now starting to be rediscovered by governments and business alike. In 2021, many European countries increased subsidy support for solar thermal, including Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Malta, and the UK (e.g the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme). Furthermore, solar heat for industrial processes has been a significant area of growth.[3]
In many other territories there is no need for subsidy support as high irradiance and fuel prices make for a clear business case – both financially and in respect of carbon emissions. And as 2022 continues, increasing fuel prices and a global reliance on imported fuels mean the case for locally generated low carbon heat is becoming ever more compelling – both for energy security and energy independence.
Naked Energy is a growing a business that is re-imagining and re-engineering solar thermal technologies. Our novel solar thermal and PV-thermal hybrid products, VirtuHOT and VirtuPVT, use an advanced engineering approach to modernise an existing technology. Our approach provides high temperature outputs, high output per unit roof area and protection from utility price increases. We provide full system level monitoring through our digital platform Clarity247, which validates performance in real time and enables proactive maintenance – all of this serves to change energy for good and re-define solar energy.
References:
[1] ARS Technica: The decreasing cost of renewables unlikely to plateau any time soon
https://arstechnica.com/science/2021/10/the-decreasing-cost-of-renewables-unlikely-to-plateau-anytime-soon/
[2] DECC (2016) Potential Cost Reductions for Air Source Heat Pumps. The scope for a mass market.
[3] Solar Thermal World: Key SHIP Markets
https://solarthermalworld.org/news/key-ship-markets-are-germany-chile-spain-and-france/