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UK PV program announces fourth-round grants for 581 kW
On June 10, the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) announced fourth-round grants of £2 million ($3.3 million) for 21 projects representing 581 kW as part of its Major Demonstration Programme (MDP). While London-based integrator Solar Century received the largest number of grants, equaling 137 kW, the five grants to BP Solar led the pack with a total capacity of 182 kW.
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Welch Developement Agency |
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Solar nights: A technology center in Wales, which won a grant through the BIPV program, will install 84 kW of Shell Solar CIS modules on a facade by November. |
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The awards, for systems between 5 and 100 kW, provide 40 percent of the funding for commercial installations and up to 65 percent for installations on public buildings. A second account provides up to 50 percent subsidies for systems below 5 kW on an ongoing basis. Of the £20 million ($33.1 million) available for the MDP, which started in March 2002, just over half of the funding had been reserved as of late June, including £7.8 million ($12.9 million) for a capacity of just over 2 MW in the larger account, and £2.4 million ($4 million) for the smaller systems equaling an installed capacity of 665 kW. The average price for installed costs in that group dropped 17 percent from £8.3 ($13.74) per watt at the start of the program to a still rather high £6.90 ($11.42) by the first quarter of 2003. A high-level program official, who asked that his name not be used, says the high cost of imports is to blame. By comparison, the installed costs in Germany for the majority of systems in a March survey conducted by the German edition of PHOTON ranged between EUR5 and EUR6.50 ($5.75 and $7.48) per watt (see PI 4/2003, p. 12).
In another DTI program started prior to the MDP, the Large-Scale BIPV Field Trial, in which £4.2 million ($6.9 million) was awarded for putting PV on 18 public buildings (see PI 3/2002, p. 8), Shell Solar announced on June 24 it had been chosen to supply 2,400 CIS modules for an 84 kW system on a new building at a technology center in Wales.
A spokesman at Energy Saving Trust (EST), the agency contracted by DTI to administer the MDP, says proposals for the fifth round are due by Aug. 31. Winning proposals will be announced around the beginning of September.
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