Dear Solarthermalworld.org Reader,
Demand
for the solar thermal incentive programmes in California and Great
Britain is still far below expectations. Within the California Solar
Initiative – Thermal, around 800 applications for solar water heaters
are competing with 120,000 applications for photovoltaic systems - a big
gap, even if the PV programme was launched three years earlier.
Regarding the UK, the situation does not look much better: In the first 9
months, there was only one solar thermal installation which was
subsidised by the Renewable Heat Incentive, compared to 136 biomass
boilers receiving funding during the same period. It is what a UK
climate change blogger titled “the scandal of the unclaimed renewable
heat grants”. The UK industry says that the PR efforts for solar have
heavily favoured PV over the last three years and that the renewable
heat market is now following biomass with great interest. The
administrators of the CSI –Thermal are trying to change solar thermal’s
marginal role by increasing the incentive level and launching a
marketing campaign. The photo shows one of the first large solar thermal
installations which benefited from the CSI subsidy in April 2011. It
was installed on the roof of the Santa Clara University in California.
Best regards,
The Solarthermalworld.org Team
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