Greece has recently gone through the greatest financial crisis to affect a member of the Eurozone since the introduction of the single currency ten years ago. With raging unemployment exacerbated by huge cut-backs in public sector spending, the Athens government spent the first quarter of 2010 faced by riots in the streets, a result of the financial crisis which is hitting the Greeks harder than anybody.

However, plans are afoot to revitalise the stricken Greek economy with the announcement yesterday that 12 billion euros will be invested in green projects in an attempt to create jobs in new renewable industries. In a press release issued by the Greek government, Tina Birbili the Environment Minister said,

“The ministry hopes the programme will decisively contribute to face recession and lead to dynamic economic growth”

Birbili believes that renewable projects could attract around 32 billion euros of investment from around the world creating up to 192,000 jobs. This will at least come as a glimpse of light in a country where unemployment is steadily on the rise and national debt is at an all time high. The EU bailout, funded largely by Germany expires in 2 years, by which point Greece will be hoping that the economy is back on track.

Both Gordon Brown and Barack Obama have been keen exponents of renewable energy as a means of kick-starting the struggling economies of the UK and US respectively. Sound bites such as ‘Green New Deal’ have regularly appeared in the press both sides of the Atlantic in a reference to the government projects of the 1930’s designed to boost recovery after the Great depression. It seems that Greece is going to follow this lead with a number of projects now in the pipeline.

Certainly, with Greece already falling behind other southern European countries with regards to its renewable energy uptake, the investment could provide the vital impetus needed to get the renewable energy industry in Greece on its feet. With targets of generating 40 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, they have their work cut out.

With Sunday churchgoing on the decline and churches regularly converted into trendy apartments, bars and nightclubs it perhaps comes as no surprise that around 44 per cent of Church of England dioceses are running deficits. However, a report released by British Gas has showed that the installation of solar panels on religious buildings could see the generation of around £30 million across the UK.

Utilising the feed-in tariff mechanism, the British Gas report suggests that the feed-in tariff scheme would not only provide a steady revenue stream for religious buildings in need of cash but also save up to around £5 million on electricity overheads with energy coming directly from the solar panels installed on the roof.

British Gas, who have already begun installing panels on the rooves of religious buildings see a huge potential both in carbon emission reduction and savings,

“These potential savings are great news for the UK’s religious buildings and their congregations, and give them the opportunity to lead their communities in tackling climate change and helping Britain move towards a low carbon society. Religious buildings are particularly well suited to solar power as they tend to have large south-facing rooves which receive direct sunlight for the main part of the day” commented MD of British Gas, Phil Bentley. 

“The Government’s Feed-In Tariff scheme is the key to unlocking the potential of solar power in Britain. As Britain’s energy company, we at British Gas are committed to helping households, business and community and faith groups make the most of this opportunity to cut their carbon footprint and earn money for the electricity they generate,” he added.

Already up and running on the new scheme is the St Silas church in Pentonville, London which is using a PV tiled roof to take advantage of the feed-in tariff mechanism. Taking time out to praise the scheme, Father Paul Richards of St Silas Church stated,

“The Church of England is committed to saving energy and becoming greener throughout the UK and the potential for solar panels on our churches is an exciting prospect. Even though not all UK churches could adopt this model due to planning and architectural conservation laws, there may be thousands of Church of England buildings out there that could help create a greener future by generating clean energy as well as some much needed income.”

Bad news abounds in the British press with daily economic doom and gloom stories painting a grim picture of the public sector with key areas such as education set to struggle as purse strings are tightened. However, good news at last as Solarcentury and GE announce their Solar4Schools programme, a scheme designed to make solar energy affordable for UK schools.

The Solar4Schools project will see GE Capital cover the installation costs of solar panels with average costs of £16,000 for a secondary school being paid off after just 15 years, utilizing the feed-in tariff mechanism. GE Capital’s investment means that schools only have to foot the deposit for the installation but can subsequently make significant savings on their energy bills as the panels begin to generate power.

The real benefit for schools comes once the initial cost of the installation is paid off. The feed-in tariff works by paying premium rates for the energy generated by small renewable projects meaning that schools will be able to enjoy a constant revenue stream from the energy generated by the panels over the projects 25 year lifespan.

CEO of Solarcentury Derry Newman stated,

“We’re delighted GE is helping roll Solar4Schools out on a larger scale. As local authorities face budget cuts, this is an opportunity for them to create a long term revenue stream.”

Certainly, with 250 schools already benefiting from a scheme which could see potential savings of £840 pa on bills and generating up to £3000 in revenue, the Solar4Schools project is already proving a success.

Understanding how to design a PV system is not rocket science, but it is more complex than many people consider. Here’s a very quick overview of the important points.

Solar panels produce direct current (DC). This means you need an inverter to turn that electricity into mains frequency alternating current (AC).  Inverters come in a range of power ratings. The more solar panels you have, the more power the inverter has to deal with, so the size and cost increases. It’s very important to match the size of the inverter to the number of solar panels.

If the inverter is too small, you will lose out on some of the energy that your system produces. If it is too large, the inverter may not perform at its optimum efficiency, and you will have paid for more than is necessary. In the UK, the optimum situation is to have an inverter that is rated at 80% of the power rating of your PV system, since it is rare you will be producing at 100% power.

More critically than getting the power right, you need to ensure the voltage and current of your solar panel system remains within the input range of the chosen inverter. To re-cap, solar panels on your roof are generally connected together in series, in a ‘string’. This increases the system voltage, but does not increase the current. Once a certain number of solar panels have been connected in series, the voltage will become too high and the system needs to be arranged in two strings, each of the same number of panels, connected in parallel. This generally occurs after a string exceeds 8 – 11 solar panels. When strings are connected in parallel, the currents add-up, but the voltage remains constant.

By adding more and more strings in parallel, the current and voltage can be controlled to remain in the inverter limits. For large solar installations, inverters can used that that have a very high power capacity, or alternatively it is possible to use many small inverters connected in parallel.

It is important to remember certain constraints. Inverters come in several sizes, but there may be some numbers of solar panels for which no inverter is ideal. For instance, because it is necessary for all stings to be equal in size, you can only use an even number of solar panels when using multiple strings. In addition, all solar panels must receive the same amount of sunlight when connected to the same inverter. It is no good to have some solar panels facing different directions on different parts of the roof. New technologies, soon to become widely avaialable that will make this process much easier. Namely micro-inverters, which convert DC to AC at every solar panel, will mean that solar panels can face different directions, however these are not yet widely available.

If you have a sales visit from a solar company, make sure the salesman understands these points as he’s designing your system.