As part of Greenpeace’s international campaign to stop the use of polluting fossil fuels and promote solar technologies, the construction of the world’s biggest solar photovoltaic power station is about to commence. The Greek Government is set to approve the first 5 Megawatts (MW) of a 50 MW solar power station At 50 Megawatts, it is 15 times larger than any other single photovoltaic installation in the world and more than 50 per cent of the entire 1996 global sales of photovoltaics, the cells which convert solar energy to electricity. 48 million solar cells will be used to provide 116 million kilowatt hours of electricity a year. That is enough power for almost 100,000 people or 30,000 homes.
The cost of the 50MW will be 4.2 times less than the average global cost of grid-connected photovoltaics. Building the equivalent of just eight more solar power plants like the Crete proposal would be enough to create a $27 billion worldwide market for photovoltaic technology.
The time for a switch to solar is now.
For Greece, it’s proof that large scale solar energy projects can be constructed instead of building new fossil fuel energy sources. The solar power station is likely to make obsolete the proposed construction of an oil-fired power station.
The Crete proposal has sparked discussions in other countries in the Mediterranean, North Africa and the Middle East to replicate the Crete solar power station. Within Europe, the Mediterranean region is expected to increase energy use more than four times in the next 25 years. Already today, 50 per cent of the region’s current energy supply could be met by solar and other renewable energy technologies.
What is happening on Crete shows what can happen all over the world. By its very scale, the construction of this single solar power station smashes conventional orthodoxy which assumes that solar energy is far too costly, that it will only proceed incrementally and well into the distant future, and that we do not have the capacity to switch from burning fossil fuels. For the progress of photovoltaic technology, the Crete solar power station is a breakthrough of global importance.
SOLAR COMES OF AGE
After two faltering decades of development and neglect, the photovoltaics industry is showing that it can become a mainstream force. The time is right to unlock the inherent potential of solar photovoltaics, and create a multi-billion dollar, global industry. Solar photovoltaics can be deployed from the tropics to the ice caps. As an industry, it has the potential to develop as swiftly as the mobile phone or the laptop computer, heralding major changes in the electricity, construction and electronics sectors.
CLIMATE THREAT, SOLAR SOLUTION
Ironically, solar photovoltaics research took off 20 years ago in the midst of an oil crisis. As oil companies lost enthusiasm for developing strong solar markets, the environmental threat of climate change, caused by the burning of fossil fuels like oil, worsened.
In December, 1997 world governments gather in Kyoto, Japan to agree limits on the emission of global warming gases - a successful outcome means that business-as-usual can no longer be an option. There is consensus that climate change is a major global environmental threat, yet the will to act is weak. Politicians prevaricate and ignore solar solutions, whilst fossil fuel vested interests block change.
The construction of a solar power station on Crete is a potent symbol of hope that genuine change is possible and can trigger a dramatic shift in the fortunes of solar photovoltaics worldwide.
Solar power represents the power to change, and Greenpeace is committed to catalysing such change.
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