Attendants: Emiliano Perezagua, President Joachim Luther, Vice-President Hans Willemsen, Vice-President Stefan Nowak, WG1 Leader Jean-Louis Bal, WG 2Leader Wim Sinke, WG 3 Leader Hubert Aulich, WG 4 Leader Berhard Dimmler Gert Jan Jongerden Joachim Luther Anton Milner David Nelson Nicola Pearsall Stanislaw Petruszko Jaromir Rehak Evelyne Schellekens Giovanni??? Silvestrini Apologizes: Antonio Luque Istvan Pataki Alain Garnier Anjali Shanker European Commission: Georges Deschamps Rolf Öström Garbine Guiu Gianluca Tondi David Anderson Alexandre D Angelo Minutes Secretariat Michel Viaud, EPIA Eleni Despotou, EPIA Peter Helm, WIP 1
The meeting started at 10.00. 1- E. Perezagua welcomed the participants and asked for the approval of the agenda. No changes have been proposed and the agenda is unanimously approved. He added that after R. Barthez resignation, A. Shanker is proposed and approved by the executive committee at the meeting on 8 th Nov. 05 to be member of the steering committee and member of WG 4. She is an Indian French with long experience in developing countries. 2- The leaders of the working groups presented the status of their work. For WG Policy and instruments, S. Nowak, presented the project of the way of work. The specific areas to work on all the incentive schemes, criteria for policy analysis, policy mechanisms, implementation and successes and failures. The methodology, task identification, action plan, deliverables and milestones as well as boundary conditions have been proposed. Taking into consideration the wide field and the complexity of the matter, the work should be focused to the following policy areas: industry, energy and environment. For each area a percentage of effort have been allocated. As the participants didn t agree on the share of the efforts allocated to each matter it has been decided to delete these numbers. W. Sinke stressed the need for concrete deliverables as e.g. leaflet to distribute in the members states in order to include PV in their energy portfolio. H. Willemsen asked that a table of specific political deadlines should be established in order to be ready on time. G. Decshamps in collaboration with the secretariat the associations will prepare this table and make it available for the steering committee. Next policy group meeting is planned on 17th February, in Brussels and probably next one in Copenhagen, Denmark. J.L. Bal presented the status of the working group information, promotion, education and market deployment. Due to the fact that in the denomination of that group there is a confusion between tools and objectives (information, education and promotion are tools and market deployment is the objective), it was proposed to the executive committee meeting on 8th November to change the name to Market deployment and incorporating of course the rest of the components. He presented a scheme showing the most important matters to treat within this WG and which way the tools used influence the market deployment. The following groups have been created and a leader is allocated to its sub group. For EHS (Environment, Health and Safety) - E. Schellekens, BIPV- M. Jedliska, Market penetration - B. Rudek, Financial instruments, - A. Pleging, access to the grid - Jorge. However, concrete actions and milestones are not still defined. N. Pearsall expressed her concern about the way of tackling education in this structure as it represents a wide and complex matter. She asked for more clarification on the action plan and implementation. 2
WG science, technology and applications leader, W. Sinke presented the status of the work of that WG. As there are concrete actions to be finalized (SRA for FP 7) in a defined time frame, this WG has fixed already its priorities and its time schedule. The background, the main objectives, the expected results and impact, the methodology, the action plan and the deliverables have been presented with the ultimate aim to strengthen Europe s position in PV focusing into people, planet and prosperity. The main objectives are to define (widely accepted) technical needs for development of PV, develop Strategic Research Agenda (SRA) and contribute to the establishment of a EU PV Research Area (PV-ERA). The expected results are an optimum alignment of PV-research (EC and national) with short, medium and long-term needs of the European PV-sector, well-balanced mix of basic and applied research to be future-proof, addressing issues all along the value chain (from materials and devices to BOS and systems), facilitating continued or improved competitiveness of the European PV-sector enabling rapid implementation of PV along the lines sketched in the Vision report. W. Sinke said that the SRA should be ready by the middle of next year in order to be on time. G. Deschamps asked to be careful with the wording and reformulate the term alignment. S. Nowak pointed out that this agenda is a topical one and we should find ways to work all together. Such presentation could provoke skepticism in the national level. H. Aulich agreed on that and added that important research work has been made and important funds have been allocated in the national level too, so we should not forget that. He added that some research is needed for the specific applications in developing countries. In the chart presented by W. Sinke on electricity prices in Europe and PV competitiveness, H. Aulich commented that it could be useful to add peak power prices too which is a target easily achievable. H. Aulich as new appointed chairman of the WG developing countries presented its work proposal for that group. He stressed that a lot of documents, initiatives and paper already exist. There is need of concrete useful actions having a certain impact to the population. First, the group should address the developing countries through the EUEI (European Union Energy Initiative) of DG Dev. As the target countries are the African ones the WG will work towards the same direction in order to combine efforts and have results. A workshop will be organized on 20 th March on the purpose in collaboration with European and world institutions as well as with beneficiary countries. Some successful schemes are existing and applied today in different countries e. g Morocco. Recommendations can be made in order to have successful projects. Such models can be analyzed and implemented in other countries by taking into account country specificities. Taking into account the success of feed in tariff system for grid connected applications it is proposed that this model is transferred to the developing countries for rural electrification. A mini-grid can be established and a feed in tariff will be received by the end users. 3
These two concepts will be elaborated and presented at the end of the next meeting of the WG for discussion Incentives are created for installing PV and maintain it. This model can be profitable for other RES as wind, solar thermal etc. The money can be received from the utility, World Bank or European funds. The aim is to become it sustainable. The possibility should be given for an extension of the grid. If we are limited to the solar home systems there is no possibility for extension. However, some interesting questions have been raised as need for national programmes, micro-credits use, choice of a model etc. In a long term a creation of local infrastructure is possible with all the accompanying benefits for the local society. After the presentations of the WGs status H. Willemsen presented a slide which represented the structure of the PV Platform which helps to identify interactions and interfaces. After few comments by the participants the scheme will be slightly modified and published in the website. M. Viaud presented the newly published website. All documents will be published there. W. Sinke asked for the creation of a members area and added that only PDF. docs should be published in the public part. G. Deschamps reported on the progress of the mirror group constitution. The Commission invited the permanent national representations to propose a representative for their country. The constitution of the mirror group is scheduled on 12 th January. W. Sinke said that he is worried about the way the mirror group members are selected, namely in a process that is fully detached from the PVTP activities. The steering committee members could steer this process in their respective countries to obtain an optimum result. J. Rehak agreed on that. G. Deschamps presented the agenda of the general assembly meeting scheduled on 19 May just after the PV technical days. E. Perezagua added that probably it could be useful to integrate how one can participate in the PV Platform. J. Luther considers that PV ERA NET presentation is not appropriate at this stage in the programme. The executive committee will send its proposal to the commission on the purpose. E. Schellekens proposed to improve the wording and make it more attractive. Regarding the FP 7 budget it seems that it is too late to intervene to the amount allocated to RES and more specifically in PV but as G. Deschamps pointed out it is not too late for the details of the work programme. For this reason the first SRA results are essential to feed the FP 7. N. Pearsall said that Eurec Agency together with EREC are claiming a RES budget line as well as non reduction of the Research budget and she invites as many as possible people to join that option. S. Nowak proposes that the message should be stronger and show and say that industry is prepared to play this role. 4
E. Perezagua briefly presented the Implementation of code of conduct on transparency and openness. G. Decshamps asked the secretariat to draft an official answer and send it to the Commission. The chairman asked the commission if there are any possibilities of supplementary financing for the Platform. G. Deschamps answered that the European Commission supports financially the secretariat of the PV Platform and the PV policy group which will give important input to the WG Policy and instruments of the Platform. Next steering committee meeting is planned on 6 th April in Munich and next executive committee meeting on 5 th April at 8 pm at the same place. The meeting finished at 3:30 pm. 5