As a close neighbor of Japan, Taiwan’s energy future shares similarities for both energy technology development as well as energy challenges. Both island countries have traditionally relied mostly on imported fossil fuel resources and are highly earthquake prone, which have fueled intense debates over nuclear power policies as well as a further push into clean energy.

A wind farm in Miaoli, Taiwan.

A week after the quake, I hiked to a seaside town about two hours south of Taipei, and was greeted with a coastline dotted with wind turbines. On another excursion during the trip, a hydroelectric dam near Taipei exposed distressingly low water levels and a big swath of dry lake shores. The water from the reservoir irrigates farms and supplies drinking water for homes and businesses. Like parts of the U.S. gripped by drought, Taiwan needs more rain and to figure out ways to make up for the shortfall.

Renewable energy, resource conservation and protests over nuclear power are nothing new in the history of energy development in many parts of the world. But population and economic growth, which taxes and at times destroys our environment, requires much more thoughtful planning for where and how we produce energy. Taiwan, along with mainland China, and post-Fukushima Japan, are increasingly being forced to address these issues.

Look to Japan

Japan has become a hot market for solar energy and other renewable energy generation, as well as energy storage, after an earthquake wrecked the Fukushima nuclear power plant in March 2011. The government put in place generous subsidies for alternative energy development. Both IHS and Bloomberg New Energy Finance predict that Japan will add more solar power generation than any country except China in 2013.

A map of wind farms in Taiwan.

The Fukushima disaster prompted Taiwan to re-examine its nuclear power policy and stirred protests against the construction of a fourth nuclear power plant, which is actually close to completion.

Taiwan also subsidizes clean power and plans to increase solar and wind energy development. Late last year, the government raised the 2013 target for new solar energy generation by 30 percent to 130 megawatts. The country is pushing for wind farm construction on the coast because it already has made use of suitable wind resource island, according to Taiwan Power Co. By the end of 2012, Taiwan had 559.66 megawatts of cumulative wind power generation capacity and 134.3 megawatts of solar power generation capacity, the utility said.

Shihmen Dam in Taoyuan, Taiwan.

Renewable electricity generation capacity (excluding hydropower) accounted for just over 6 percent of Taiwan’s total (41.4 gigawatts). In terms of the actual power produced — solar and wind farms can’t generate power around the clock — and renewable electricity made up nearly 3 percent of the total power produced, according to Taiwan Power’s most recent, 2012 sustainability report.

Solar energy should play a larger in Taiwan given that, like Japan, Taiwan is home to major solar cell makers. Promoting more solar energy production also will help Taiwan’s domestic solar manufacturers, who also have been hit hard by an oversupply of solar cells in the global market over the past two years. The glut has caused prices to crash and forced many solar manufacturers to go out of business.

The low water level at the Shihmen Dam.

One of the largest Taiwanese solar cell makers, Neo Solar Power, recently announced a survival plan to merge with another Taiwanese solar cell maker, DelSolar. Neo Solar said the combined company will have “close to 2 gigawatts” of production capacity, which would be comparable to First Solar’s capacity of 1.9 gigawatts at the end of 2012.

For Taiwan and its 23.3 million people, adding more solar and wind power makes economic sense and helps it to gradually reduce its reliance on imported fossil fuels and perhaps its own struggle with whether to build more nuclear power plants over the long run. As the nation takes cues from Japan, and others, expect to see a greater push into clean power, and more controversy over nuclear.

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Bloomberg NEF reports that investors worldwide put $56.6 billion into clean energy projects and companies in the third quarter of 2012. That funding — which includes asset financing for utility-scale clean power, government funding, corporate funding, and venture capital funding — was 20 percent lower than the amount invested in the third quarter of 2011. In particular, asset financing for utility-scale clean power projects fell 10 percent below the levels of 2011.

Aerial view of Apple’s solar farm

Bloomberg NEF says because of this drop in Q3 2012 funding, investment figures for the full-year 2012 will be lower than in 2011. The report says 2012 could “be the first down-year for world investment in the sector for at least eight years.”

The Cleantech Group also reported that venture capital funding for cleantech startups hit $1.56 billion in the third quarter of 2012, which was down 30 percent compared to the third quarter of 2011 ($2.23 billion). And following a trend that’s been going on for that past year or so, 92 percent ($1.43 billion) of the money invested during the quarter went into Series B rounds or later.

Basically venture capitalists are moving away from investing in new early-stage cleantech startups. The cleantech startups that received the largest rounds in the third quarter of 2012 include matured companies like Fisker Automotive, EcoMotors, GridPoint, Viridity Energy and Alarm.com. Part of the reason for that funding trend is a “lack of strong IPO exits,” says Cleantech Group’s CEO Sheeraz Haji in the release.

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Apple’s solar patents

First let’s look at Apple’s solar patent applications. The latest was granted last month (via Patently Apple), and it is for a voltage converter and controller for charging a device with solar power. A good deal of this patent focuses on algorithms and devices that can monitor and control the way in which a portable device could most effectively be charged via solar, using both embedded solar cells and an attachable solar power source.

According to Patently Apple — which as the name denotes follows Apple’s patent applications like a hawk — Apple now has two solar-related patents granted and five solar applications filed in total. The other solar patent granted was awarded in January 2011 and covers similar territory, including a way to monitor and control a charge from a solar source for a mobile device.

What Apple sees in solar

In all of these patents, Apple looks at solar as a way to enable its gadgets to be charged in locations where there is no grid available and also as a way to generally extend the battery life of a device. Apple has long been willing to invest in ways to boost the battery life of its gadgets, including selling extra battery chargers that will still be able to hold 80 percent of its charge after a year.

Back in 2009, Apple launched a 17-inch MacBook Pro with a built-in battery. Lots of critics didn’t like the built-in aspect of the battery, but the lithium-polymer battery that Apple used could run for up to eight hours on a single charge and retain at least 80 percent of that capacity for up to 1,000 recharge cycles. Compare that with only about 300 recharges for Apple’s 13- and 15-inch models’ removable lithium-ion batteries. The longer life of the 17-inch model was also due to an adaptive charging mechanism — an embedded chip that monitors charge level and temperature and helps manage the charging current.

But the reality is that batteries on an individual level aren’t making all that much progress in terms of capacity and cost. Boosting batteries in the short term will come from things like software for battery and energy management, and perhaps — if it proves to be economic — tapping micro sources of clean power like embedded solar cells. In an increasingly mobile life, the plug is one of the last true barriers to mobility.

Extending the time between plugging in is also another way to target new markets in areas where there’s less reliable grid power. Yes, Apple generally focuses on developed markets and high-end goods, but Apple is no stranger to the need for finding new markets and developing new strategies. I could envision its one day looking to sell its devices in developing markets with less reliable grid power.

Solar gadgets

Adding solar cells to gadgets has been a sort of novelty and in a nascent stage for a while. The big barriers have been the price of solar cells as well as the tiny amount of solar power these tiny cells can usually generate. If you look at the variety of solar chargers for iPhones out there, the bulk of these chargers consists of an extra lithium-ion battery that is supplemented with a small amount of solar power from the embedded mini solar panel. In some of these cases the solar cell is more novelty than practical charging tool.

A startup called Konarka has been developing a next-gen solar plastic that could be a good fit for solar gadgets, and it is meant to be embedded in materials (umbrellas and bags), devices and buildings. However, Konarka has long been in a sort of research and development phase, and the solar plastic also has a very low efficiency.

But as more gadget makers target developing markets and devices themselves become more energy-efficient, these solar-powered products are getting better. Recently Samsung launched a solar-powered netbook that can run for 15 hours, almost double the 8-hour standard laptop, meant for the Kenyan market. The solar netbook is also supposed to go on sale in Russia, the U.S., South Korea and Europe.

And one of the barriers to solar gadgets has been slowly getting solved: the price of solar cells. As you can see if you’ve been following the recent spate of bankruptcies in the solar industry (Solyndra, SpectraWatt, Evergreen Solar), the price of solar panels and cells has dropped dramatically in recent months and years, which is bad for some of the solar tech companies but good for the overall solar market and solar consumers. The price of solar is pretty much the lowest it’s been in history.

Apple’s effect on solar

If Apple decided to launch a gadget with embedded solar, it could help bring down the prices of solar for gadgets even more. As Nat Bullard, an analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance, told me recently, Apple is “a fierce negotiator for components,” and if it’s interested in solar it could lock up low-cost supply deals for solar parts as it has with iPod and iPad components such as glass and memory.

Foxconn, Apple’s key supplier, has been looking into solar production and has been rumored to be investing in solar manufacturing in various ways. And why not? Solar is finally becoming a commodity, with low enough prices to justify the entrance of this type of low-cost supplier.

Apple has also been a leader in embracing new technology, when Steve Jobs deemed that the time was right. Then when Apple launches new tech into its cutting-edge simple designs, the rest of the industry tends to follow. As Bullard said to me:

If any company could reliably integrate PV into consumer portable electronics, it is Apple. Given its other devices, it would likely make the simplest, most elegant integration. It may sacrifice some nominal performance (and greater freedom of choice) for the sake of simplicity and robustness — as it has done time and again in the past decade.

Apple could be on track to sell 30 million iPhones globally in the fourth quarter of this year. Those kind of volumes could have a major effect on the solar industry, not only in the form of contracts but also as a way to educate consumers about the existence and usefulness of solar as a power source.

Images courtesy of Flickr user mikecogh, Samsung, and Patently Apple

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That’s down more than a third from a record $47.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2010, according to the research firm’s count of asset finance, share sales, venture capital and private equity going into clean energy. While part of the big drop was due to a “hangover” from the record-high investments made in the last three months of 2010, it’s also based on some serious headwinds facing the industry, New Energy Finance CEO Michael Liebreich said.

Solar power, for one, is being squeezed by an anticipated slowdown in feed-in tariffs and other government subsidies in big European markets such as Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic, Liebreich said. Germany’s lucrative feed-in tariffs are set to be reduced further in July, while Italy is now considering capping payouts to the flood of solar projects announced last year under its own subsidy program.

Also, U.S. wind power projects have been hit hard by falling prices for natural gas, which hit lows not seen since 2002, the report stated. Natural gas turbines are direct competitors with wind power projects, and new shale gas extraction projects, (which could have some environmental issues) have also promised to add huge new stores to the U.S.’s stocks of the fossil fuel.

These market hurdles are reflected in the fall in asset finance in the first quarter, which slid to $25.7 billion from $36.6 billion in the previous quarter.

What were the bright spots? The report identified Brazilian and Chinese wind power projects, with China spending $10 billion, or 25 percent more than the first quarter of 2010, and Brazil doubling its wind investment to $2.1 billion compared to the same quarter last year.

China remains the leader in clean energy investment, with a 39-percent increase to hit a record $54.4 billion last year. That was enough to give China the lead over the U.S. in installed renewable energy capacity, as well as retain its spot as the top manufacturer of wind turbines and solar panels.

China also hosted the biggest green energy IPO of the first quarter, when Sinovel Wind Group raised 9.46 billion yuan ($1.4 billion) in a March public offering on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

Big new investments in European offshore wind transmission also helped offset a general decline in European wind power investment, which fell 10 percent to $4.4 billion in the first quarter.

Also, while Bloomberg NEF’s report specifically did not include investment into distributed power generation, it noted that this investment grew 91 percent last year compared to 2009.

The overall big drop in asset finance marks a contrast with a big jump (in terms of dollars) in venture capital investment for the first quarter — up to $2.57 billion, bringing in the second highest quarterly total ever, as reported by the Cleantech Group last week. But that high figure largely consisted in several very large follow-on rounds for companies that might otherwise be seeking IPOs if not for the unfavorable economic climate, and that, as Neal Dikeman covered for us last week, could underscore some problems for green investment in the months to come.

Bloomberg NEF, for its part, reported a slight increase in green energy venture capital investment in the first quarter, up to $1.8 billion from $1.7 billion in the previous quarter. Those figures differ from those recorded by the Cleantech Group, largely due to differences in how the two groups define clean technology.

Image courtesy of Ugglan via Creative Commons license.

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Generating capacity at solar projects ranging from residential rooftop systems to centralized solar power plants could jump to 44 gigawatts by 2020, from just 1.4 gigawatts today, according to the market research firm’s new report. These figures include electricity from installations that use solar panels as well as concentrating solar thermal technologies, which produce steam to run generators by using mirrors to concentrate the sunlight onto fluid-carrying containers.

Today’s forecast comes at a time when U.S. venture capital investments in solar have dropped. Dow Jones VentureSource reported Monday that investors pumped $150.1 million into 10 deals in the third quarter, down from $296.9 million in six deals in the same quarter in 2009. But the solar investments for the first three quarters this year have reached $891.2 million, surpassing the $712 million for the entire 2009.

The solar industry will need taxpayers’ help, including rebates and tax credits, for at least three more years in order to boost solar energy demand significantly, BNEF said. That’s mainly because solar electricity remains expensive, even though prices for solar panels have dropped by more than half in the last two years. Crystalline silicon solar panel manufacturers are delivering their products for around $2.10-$2.20 per watt, said Jenny Chase, manager of BNEF’s Solar Insight Service.

Without government subsidies, solar electricity’s generation cost is just shy of $0.20 per kilowatt-hour — almost four times the cost of generating electricity from coal and at least twice as expensive as onshore wind energy, BNEF said.

Generating capacity from solar panels could reach 30 gigawatts by 2020, according to BNEF, while solar-thermal technologies could reach 14 gigawatts of generating capacity by then. Solar-panel installations on company properties, as opposed to residential and utility projects, will account for about half of the new systems from now to 2020, BNEF said. Residential systems will make up 25 percent of the new deployment during the same time. Installations where electricity is generated and used at the same corporate site offer better investment returns than utility-scale solar projects, because the owners end up buying less electricity at retail prices.

Many states have set mandates for renewable energy consumption, and now offer rewards for businesses and consumers who install solar energy systems. The federal government has doled out billions of dollars in grants and loans to solar energy equipment manufacturers and power plant developers in the past two years, thanks largely to the Recovery Act. The solar industry is lobbying to extend some of the stimulus programs, though it could find itself in a tough fight if Republicans win more control of Congress in next week’s elections.

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Photo courtesy of Jeremy Levine Design