By Martin Hellicar
SUBSTANTIAL state subsidies for solar power projects are in the pipeline, the House environment committee heard yesterday.
“I’m not sure I should be divulging this yet, but Commerce Minister Nicos Rolandis has asked us to draw up guidelines for provision of subsidies to support projects on energy saving and renewable energy,” Solonas Kassimis, of the ministry’s energy section, told deputies.
The Minister’s ambitions were to subsidise solar and other ecologically sound energy projects in the agricultural, industrial and tourism sectors to the tune of 50 per cent, with half a million pounds made available for subsidies this year, Kassimis added.
But, this proposal apart, the general consensus at yesterday’s committee was that the government was doing next to nothing to take advantage of the huge potential for solar power on the sun-drenched island.
Costas Papastavrou, of the Agriculture Ministry’s environment service, descried state efforts to promote renewable energy as “embryonic” and “less than zero.”
The presence of solar water heaters on the roves of 92 per cent of Cypriot homes means the island currently meets four per cent of its energy needs through solar power, topping the EU league table of solar power use.
But Kassimis said solar power potential remained largely untapped and investment in sunshine-trapping technology could save the country millions of pounds while substantially reducing pollution.
Ninety-six per cent of the island’s energy needs are met by imported oil, costing the country 65 per cent of its foreign exchange earnings, Kassimis said. “For each additional 1 per cent of our energy needs that is produced here we save £1.2 million in foreign exchange.”
Each one per cent increase in solar power use would also mean a cut in annual carbon dioxide emissions of 10,000 tonnes, Kassimis told deputies.
But other government representatives said the cost of installing solar power systems was prohibitive.
Papastavrou was not among the doubters. He made plain his frustration at the lack of solar power action: “We come here and talk of plans and visions only to come back the following year to say the same things.”
“Cyprus is being slapped in the face by the EU because we are way behind in this field,” Papastavrou said.
The EU had set itself targets for reducing Carbon Dioxide emissions by 8 per cent by the year 2010 but Cyprus had not even begun to discuss emission reductions, he said.
Papastavrou complained that the government had not considered the solar option when plans for new desalination plants were being thought up.
Official state policy was to promote energy saving and self-reliance and yet staff in Kassimis’s energy section have been steadily reduced from 10 to four over the past ten years, the committee heard.
Diko deputy Marios Matsakis had no doubts as to why the state had failed to support solar power initiatives.
“We all want to save energy, to reduce oil use. But it’s no accidental that solar power does not get promoted. It’s because oil companies would loose money from their pockets.”
