Tuesday 25 October 2011. The Green Piece Column.
The 11th annual World Solar Challenge recently drew to a close in Adelaide, Australia (see story), after all 37 participants successfully completed the gruelling 3000km challenge from Darwin to the south coast.
As the challenge concludes and the winning team from Japan, Team Tokai celebrate, we decided to take a look at what harnessing the power of the sun could really do for ordinary cars and whether solar power holds the potential to really drive the cars of the future.
Seeking the sun
Ah sadly a proper solar car is an unlikely prospect; solar cars need to be able to capture a steady stream of solar energy and convert it to electricity on the move to enable a steady drive at the required speed. This is a hell of a task, unlike a building, with a roof space to cover with photovoltaic cells (PV), any sort of truly practical car has to be fairly compact, and unlike most of the cars taking part in the Solar Car Challenge, they have to offer room for all the family and luggage. These practical hurdles pop up before we even think of the cost involved to produce one of these cars.
But that doesn’t mean that solar can’t play its part. We’ve already seen the likes of Nissan and Toyota use solar panels on their models to power auxiliary functions such as air conditioning. But if you really want to harness the power of the sun then ordinary battery electric cars hold the greatest potential. As we saw with actor/EV enthusiast Robert Llewellyn, who after installing a home solar panel array, managed to seriously cut the cost of running his electric car (see story). While Robert did not manage to run his electric car solely on his own electricity generated from solar power, he managed to cut his use of National Grid electricity by so much that it cost him just £5 to travel 100,000! Obviously the results for other individuals will vary depending on the size and position of your solar panels and your car use and mileage.
Solar power will over time play a bigger role in our electricity production at a national level too. Feed in tariffs are creating an incentive for ordinary people to feed in their excess micro-generation into the national grid. This could be solar, wind, hydro or even anaerobic digesters. On a larger scale, renewable energy projects are already increasing the renewable share of the energy mix which makes up the UK’s electricity supply. It means that sunshine is already helping to power our everyday lives; from computers to TVs, from kettles to washing machines. Wind plays a greater role in our renewable, clean generation than solar, and always will in a country like the UK, where sunshine is scant and strong winds are prevalent but nonetheless it is already there making a contribution.
Some like it hot
Sunnier countries, like Spain however tell a very different tale. In fact Spain is currently the world’s most advanced countries in the development of solar energy, being blessed with more sunshine than most other parts of Europe. Solar energy currently meets around 3 per cent of its electricity demand and the country currently exports around 80 per cent of its generation to Germany. Using a combination of renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, nuclear and hydro, Spain currently meets around half of its energy needs using these sources alone. It is projected that by 2013 solar capacity in the country will have reached 2,500MW.
One advantage of solar energy is that the best places to locate solar panels tend to be the sort of places few people like to live, like barren desserts. Countries like Australia and countries on the African continent have great solar potential and it’s likely that we will see more projects in the near future which will make the most of these sun-kissed lands.
Back in 2010, it was revealed that the European Parliament was considering a plan, called Desertec, to invest £5bn on a string of solar power stations along the Mediterranean desert shores of northern Africa and the Middle East, which could have provided Europe with a sixth of its electricity needs. So the potential is there.
Our verdict: Potential but at a price
Reporting the Desertec story at the time, The Guardian suggested that scientists were already estimating that sunlight theoretically could provide 10,000 times the amount of energy needed to fulfil the world’s current energy needs. If that’s the case one way or the other, we could all be driving on the power of the sun.
Solar power can also be used in electrolysis of water to split oxygen and hydrogen molecules, a clean way to produce hydrogen which in turn could be used to power hydrogen fuel cell cars.
Sadly though solar energy typically costs twice as much as generating electricity from non-renewable sources. As long as that remains the case, a solar-powered future will likely remain the dream of university students, designing the next cars to compete in the World Solar Car Challenge.
Faye Sunderland.
