Skip to main content

Belgium Dominating California In Solar

Support Provided By
belgium-rooftop-solar-1-30-13-thumb-600x398-44410
Rooftop solar in Belgium | Photo: Niels Sienaert/Flickr/Creative Commons License

 

We'd better step up our pace here in California when it comes to building new solar capacity. We're about to have our aspirations handed to us again by a forward-looking country. To the list of countries that have bested California in solar power generating capacity, which already includes Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and Japan, get ready to add a truly embarrassing new rival: Belgium.

That's right, Belgium is on track to have more solar power generating capacity than California, if it doesn't already. According to Zachary Shahan at CleanTechnica, the Kingdom of Belgium -- a relatively small country on the North Sea in Western Europe -- had 2,018 megawatts of solar generating capacity at the end of 2011. California, in the meantime, even after the largest burst of solar installations in its history, has only 2,073 megawatts and change of solar installed as of the end of December 2012. That's only a 55 megawatt margin, which Belgium may well have surpassed during the course of 2012. (Figures for 2012 are still being compiled.)

Even with that year to catch up, California still loses badly to Belgium when you divide that solar capacity up among each region's population. In 2011, Belgium had more than 184 watts of solar per capita, compared to California's 55 watts. (When you look at per capita figures, California trails behind a lot more countries, including Luxembourg, Slovakia and the Czech Republic.)

There's no particular disgrace in losing a technological challenge to Belgium: it's a highly industrialized country with an extremely tech savvy population. But for Belgium to outstrip California so handily in the solar department means California is doing something very wrong. California is almost 14 times the size of Belgium, and that's including the six percent of Belgium that's covered with water.

Balgium also has far less solar energy available to it, in its perch on the often-cloudy North Sea. A typical square meter of Belgium has only a little more than half the sunshine falling on it that a square meter of southern California does. To find a place in the U.S. with solar power potential equivalent to Belgium's in fact, you's pretty much have to go to Alaska.

So why is Belgium beating California's solar pants off? Almost all of Belgium's solar capacity is photovoltaic, and almost all of that installed due to feed-in tariff subsidies that up until 2012 were equivalent to about 44 cents per kilowatt-hour.

That's two and a half times the size of LADWP's proposed feed-in tariff payment, and it's an indication of the kind of measures we'll likely have to take to get our rooftop solar capacity where it really ought to be.

Support Provided By
Read More
Gray industrial towers and stacks rise up from behind the pitched roofs of warehouse buildings against a gray-blue sky, with a row of yellow-gold barrels with black lids lined up in the foreground to the right of a portable toilet.

California Isn't on Track To Meet Its Climate Change Mandates. It's Not Even Close.

According to the annual California Green Innovation Index released by Next 10 last week, California is off track from meeting its climate goals for the year 2030, as well as reaching carbon neutrality by 2045.
A row of cows stands in individual cages along a line of light-colored enclosures, placed along a dirt path under a blue sky dotted with white puffy clouds.

A Battle Is Underway Over California’s Lucrative Dairy Biogas Market

California is considering changes to a program that has incentivized dairy biogas, to transform methane emissions into a source of natural gas. Neighbors are pushing for an end to the subsidies because of its impact on air quality and possible water pollution.
A Black woman with long, black brains wears a black Chicago Bulls windbreaker jacket with red and white stripes as she stands at the top of a short staircase in a housing complex and rests her left hand on the metal railing. She smiles slightly while looking directly at the camera.

Los Angeles County Is Testing AI's Ability To Prevent Homelessness

In order to prevent people from becoming homeless before it happens, Los Angeles County officials are using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to predict who in the county is most likely to lose their housing. They would then step in to help those people with their rent, utility bills, car payments and more so they don't become unhoused.