Macau Matters | Solar energy and developing the energy sector

Richard Whitfield

As readers probably know, I have a strong interest in “green” technologies. I remember reading that “the Office for the Development of the Energy Sector (GDSE) has disclosed its intention to regulate the technical requirements of solar power installations, thus promoting its application in Macau”, in a Macau Daily Times article on January 14 2014. These efforts seem to have resulted in absolutely no progressover the last three years!

I have great misgivings in focusing on specific technologies when setting public energy policy, but I am nonetheless very disappointed at the total lack of progress in promoting the use of solar energy in Macau.

To me, public policy related to the energy sector should start with identifying our community goals for this part of the economy, and this should lead to technology neutral strategies for development. Again and again, governments all round the world have proven very poor at picking technological “winners” – provided the appropriate conditions are set, markets are much better at facilitating the emergence of the “best” technologies.

When I consider our community needs for the energy sector, I believe that general goals like “maximizing community quality of life through the effective use of energy, while minimizing the social, economic and environmental costs of the energy consumed” are most appropriate. In Macau, the major uses of energy are for transportation and for conditioning the built environment (air-conditioning, lighting, etc. in private and public buildings).

In a compact city like Macau, when I think of improving transportation, I am first drawn to pedestrianization of spaces so that people walk more – exercise improves general community health levels, while at the same time reducing vehicle fuel consumption and the associated pollution. Then, I think about encouraging the use of low fuel-cost/pollution vehicles, like bicycles and electric public transport and other vehicles to further reduce fuel costs and pollution.

Similarly, when I think about improving buildings in Macau, I am first drawn to changing the building regulations to encourage “green” buildings so that a building’s positioning on its site and the building structures minimize the need for expensive air-conditioning and similar systems – these ideas are well established in Europe and North America, and are beginning to be adopted in Hong Kong and elsewhere in Asia.

The next most important issue in my view is energy generation and distribution. Practically, the overall energy generation and distribution system is most robust and reliable, energy is wasted least, and capacity can be most economically added when you have a distributed network of smaller heat and power generators that use minimal fuel and produce minimal pollution. A distributed network of small combined heat and power generators is more efficient than a single large power station because small building based electricity generators can use the waste heat for boiling water for local use whereas this heat/energy is mostly wasted in large power stations.

Flexibility in local renewable energy “harvesting” is crucial. For example, many people advocate using photovoltaic panels. But to make hot water, it is much more efficient to use solar thermal panels to directly heat water than to use photovoltaic panels to make electricity and then use the electricity to heat water. Solar thermal panels capture 90+ percent of the energy in the incident sunlight, while photovoltaic panels only capture 20+ percent of the energy, so to heat the same volume of water you need four times the surface area of expensive photovoltaic panels as you would need of much cheaper solar thermal panels.

I am very happy that the Macau government is thinking about energy policy, but progress seems to be largely non-existent. This is not good enough.