Lend Lease Solar, a unit of Australian property firm Lend Lease (LLC.AX), expects commercial and industrial use of solar panels to take off in the country around 2014 as energy costs rise and the cost of the technology declines.
By Eriko Amaha
SYDNEY |
(Reuters) - Large-scale solar power stations should become competitive with wind farms in the next five years and have a less intrusive impact on the environment, an executive at Australian provider Lend Lease Solar said.
"From the large-scale point of view, wind is the winner at the moment because it has the lowest cost," Lend Lease Solar general manager Christopher Carolan told the Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit. "We expect to be competitive with wind in around 2015."
Australia, which is one of the developed world's highest per-capita emitters of greenhouse gases, aims to produce 20 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2020, up from about 3 percent currently.
Demand for solar is also likely to get a boost with the state of Victoria announcing a target of 5 percent of the state's energy coming from solar farms by 2020.
Carolan said solar power stations also had practical advantages since they were easier to build than wind farms.
"The planning process is much simpler because it has less impact on the environment such as noise. It has less community issues and it is more correlated to peak demand," Carolan said.
Solar panels have seen an increase in popularity in Australia's residential market after the government introduced incentives to allow consumers to sell electricity generated from renewable energy sources.
FLEXIBLE
Lend Lease Solar, which launched in August, expects to make a net profit in its first business year, although Carolan did not give any financial estimates.
The firm supplies residential roof-top to commercial and industrial scale installations up to large scale utilities.
It aims to leverage off tie-ups with Australian energy company AGL AGL.AX and Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA.AX) that gives it access to four million households.
Carolan also said the firm may look overseas to export their expertise in the solar business.
It has already established supply partnerships with U.S.-based First Solar Inc. (FSLR.O) and Norwegian-based Renewable Energy Corporation (REC) (REC.OL).
Flexibility was key in the renewable industry, he said.
"The issue about renewables is that the game changes every six months, because there is a feed-in-tariff change, technology change, there is a legislative change," Carolan said. Feed-in-tariff is an Australian government incentives to promote renewables and pay for electricity generated from a renewable electricity source. \
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