The use of solar power, though still in its infancy, is starting to shine through as a promisingalternative energy source in Russia’s regions

Solar power development takes root in Russia across regional sun traps

Rooftop energy: solar panels on country homes in Novosibirsk Photo: www.rmcip.ru

The use of solar power, though still in its infancy, is starting to shine through as a promisingalternative energy source in Russia’s regions

Russia may be associated more with long, dark winters than sun-drenched days, but that does not stop private companies from tapping into a growing market for solar energy.

“There was an opinion that it’s better to use solar energy in countries where there’s a lot of sun,” said Marat Zaks, chief executive of Solar Wind, a Krasnodar-based solar panel manufacturer. “But the fact is that there’s a lot of sun in Russia too. Germany is the world’s number one solar energy consumer. But is Germany a sunny country?”

Solar Wind produces panels mostly for export but hopes to see the domestic market grow. “If we get an order from a Russian customer, we try to complete it quickly to aid the market development in the country,” Mr Zaks said.

A number of Russian private companies are creating joint ventures with Rusnano, the state nanotechnology corporation, to address local needs. Solar Wind is starting a $160m project, with Rusnano as a partner, in which it will make double-sided solar panels for domestic use. These are panels that collect solar energy from both sides, and which are made by only a few firms, said Mr Zaks.

The plant, which may start working at the end of this year or in the first quarter of 2011, will have an initial annual manufacturing capacity of 30 megawatts (MW), ramping up to 120 MW per year.

The volume of Solar Wind’s domestic sales is still much smaller compared with exports, Mr Zaks said. Private firms and regional governments are his customers locally, and the company exports solar panels to more than 22 countries, including Germany, Britain and the United States.

Industry insiders said solar energy could become a real alternative to traditional energy sources in a number of the country’s regions. “The Krasnodar Region and most parts of Siberia have insolation levels comparable to the south of France and central Italy, where solar energy is currently booming, while the Zabaikalsky Region gets more solar energy than Spain,” said Vasily Malakha, head of the environment monitoring department at the Electricity and Energy Council of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

The Krasnodar Region turned its attention to solar energy after it launched an energy-efficiency programme in 2006. The region uses solar power for electricity production and heating water. The roof of the central hospital in Ust-Labinsk, a town northeast of Krasnodar, is being covered by 300 solar panels. The installation will heat water for the hospital’s daily needs all year-round, said deputy chief doctor Alexander Kiselyov.

Solar energy use has a future in Russia, but only in combination with other renewable energy sources, said Dr Brigitte Schmidt, a board member of Eurosolar Deutschland, the German division of the European Association for Renewable Energy. Solar energy is not yet popular in Russia because of the country’s focus on oil exports, she said.

Another obstacle is the cost of solar power-station construction, compared with traditional power stations, experts said. The construction cost of a solar power station ranges from $10,000 to $17,000 per kilowatt, Mr Malakha said. In comparison, one kilowatt of installed capacity at a nuclear power station costs up to $3,000, while the figure for a hydroelectric power station is $1,000.

That makes building solar power stations less effective for Russia’s economy than construction of traditional power stations, said Yevgeny Nadezhdin of Unesco’s Sustainable Energy Development Centre, adding that hydroelectric and biofuel energy generation are the best options. Building solar electric power stations around Russia is unlikely to be economically viable over the coming 30 years, Mr Nadezhdin said.

There are several priorities of transformation and usage of solar energy. The first one is transformation of solar energy into heat and using of it for heating buildings, air conditioning, heating or distillation of water.

The second priority of using solar energy is transformation of it into electricity. If to cover a silicon crystal with a thin, pure for light layer of metal, than the photons stream, while passing through a metal layer, will release free electrons from the crystal of silicon. Those electrons will start to concentrate in the metal layer. This will cause a potential difference between crystal and a metal layer. If to connect thousands of such crystals in series or in parallel (to increase voltage and current), we'll get a solar battery that produces direct current.

Also there exists another trend of using solar energy for electricity production, which is similar to the heat power plant. It assumes using of glass pipes cover by the semiconductor layer from inside.

The exploitation of solar energy can be useful in many ways. First by substituting the fuel that is used on heat power stations it reduces the air and environment pollution, it reduces the usage of oil and other fuel that can be used in more important purposes, by substituting nuclear fuel it reduces the radiation threat, and at the same time solar energy generators can make us more secure, by reducing the dependence upon uninterrupted fuel supply.

But still there are many obstacles that prevent mass spreading of solar energy usage. One of the most obvious is low intensiveness of solar radiation even in the sunny weather. Another obstacle is high initial price of solar energy generators.

Even despite all the disadvantages of solar systems, this kind of alternative source of electric energy is spreading all over the world. The leading place in production of electricity by solar systems is taken by the USA (40% of world's production) with total power 450 megawatts and with a total square of solar heat collectors in 100 million sqr ft. And the development of this power industry will be rapid in next decades.