The EU is likely to reach only a third of its 2010 target to have
100-mil square meters (about 70,000MW of heat) of installed solar
thermal capacity, despite the market growing for the third year in a
row, renewables industry consortium Eurobserver said Aug 2.
"The challenge is to transfer best practice from a few leading
countries to all others..." - Raffaele Piria, European Solar
Thermal Industry Federation Secretary General.
Although the solar thermal market grew 10% year on year in 2004,
the annual installation rate of 1.693-mil sq m (about 1,185MW of
heat) is not enough to meet the 2010 target set by the
European Commission, said
Eurobserver in its EC-funded annual solar thermal report.
"Germany, Austria, Greece and a very active Cyprus provide 77.3%
of Europe's installed solar thermal capacity while representing only
22.5% of total EU population," said Eurobserver. "These countries
can't keep pushing European growth all by themselves indefinitely."
The ten countries which joined the EU in 2004 helped to boost the
installation rate and reach the EC's Campaign for Take-Off 2003
target, a year late, with a total installed surface for the EU25 of
15.362-mil sq m. The ten new members had an installed surface of
820,267 sq m in 2004.
The Eurobserver report views the slow take-up in solar thermal,
as well as biomass and geothermal, as evidence of the need for an EU
renewables heating law. "The challenge is to transfer best practice
from a few leading countries to all others," European Solar Thermal
Industry Federation Secretary General Raffaele Piria said. ESTIF,
along with other
renewables groups, is
calling for an EU renewables heating law setting clear growth
targets for each member state and creating a positive policy
framework throughout the EU.
Government policies have a strong effect on the renewables
sector. In Germany solar thermal growth was at 4% lower than
expected in 2004, which the German solar industry association
attributed to the strong rise in the photovoltaic power purchase
price set by Germany's new renewables law. "Many households have
preferred to invest in photovoltaic energy and so temporarily limit
solar thermal growth prospects," said the report. EU energy
commissioner Andris Piebalgs has said that the EC will not propose
any new
energy laws in 2005.
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