Patrick Jourde is the General Manager of Groupement Energétique de Cadarache (GENEC), located at the Commisariat à L'Energie Atomique (CEA) Research Centre of Cadarache. He is leader of the IEA  PVPS project on stand-alone and island PV systems, Task 3. He previously spent 12 years managing the research programme, and subsequently the supply and installation of PV on the islands of French Polynesia.

How important is the developing country market for PV?
Nearly half the world's inhabitants, who live in developing countries, do not at present have access to electricity. Photovoltaic power provides the opportunity for rural villages to leapfrog developed countries and move directly to modern electricity supplies. Around two billion people will inevitable enjoy a photovoltaic electricity supply, as grid extension or other solution to the requirements of these world citizens are considerably more expensive.

Can you give some examples of PV electrification already in operation?
Around 35 000 PV modules (around 1,5 MWp) were installed in French Polynesia between 1978 and 1990. Today electricity supply on 23 coral atolls, in many villages and hundreds of homes on the larger islands and for various economic activities (hotels, pearl farms) is totally provided by PV. Overall, 8% of the population is solarized. Other Pacific Islands, such as Tonga, Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Cook Islands, use PV to a similar extend.

What are the key technical breakthroughs required to further accelerate market penetration?
From a technical standpoint, it could be concluded that all the conditions have been fulfilled for rapid market growth. Well-designed PV systems work reliable and efficiently, and are cost-effective compared with the alternatives such as grid extension or diesel generators. There is, of course scope for improvement, form example reducing the size (and hence cost) of the PV array through more efficient load devices, and higher quality batteries with longer operational life would certainly enhance the user-friendliness of PV systems. Perhaps surprisingly, the real breakthroughs are required in non-technical aspects of human and sociological interactions, and in particular financing the purchase of systems.

Can you elaborate on these non-technical issues?
Experience has clearly shown that PV systems owned, installed, operated and maintained by the user are the most successful. This requires that the systems are simple, and ideally should be as easy to install and maintain as a domestic appliance. At the very least, user involvement is essential. In fact there have been embarrassing failures of too-complex PV systems, which were installed by highly qualified engineers. Those systems have not lived up to user expectations and have been difficult to service. Designing PV applications suitable for the user is an absolute essential.
But, as I said, the biggest non-technical barrier is financing. Even though PV can be shown to be economically viable, if there is no mechanism to finance the capital investment, the market cannot be developed. About USD 12 billion is invested annually on grid extension. More than one third of this could be better invested in PV. But this requires a breakthrough in setting up financial infrastructures for very large numbers of individual consumers, with small loan requirements, to purchase their PV generators.

What are the aims of the International Energy PV Power Systems project you are leading?
The work on PV systems in stand-alone and island applications, Task 3, is a collaborative task to advance the state-of-the-art of PV systems not connected to a major electricity grid network. These stand-alone systems represent about 90% of the current world PV market, and this will be the case for the foreseeable future. The project deals with a wide range of applications for services (, e.g. telecommunications, navigation, aids), isolated buildings (such as houses, schools, health centres) and island systems (where island means an area surrounded by an unelectrified region, not necessarily the sea, and include villages, factories, desalination plants). The project is preparing Reference Systems, which are existing excellent examples to be use to promote PV, and Candidate Projects where the experts in this project will review and influence the final design.

IEA members are industralized countries; how does the project related to developing countres?
Through the IEA  PVPS, the experience of several developed countries is brought together for the benefit of all countries. The participants of Task 3 have a great deal of accumulated experience in developing countries, as well as many on-going projects, and these are key factors for the success of the work. The international donor agencies will be critical for the financing of PV, and PVPS is developing collaboration with the World Bank and its Solar Initiative.

Given the huge size of the potential market, what programmes are there to rapidly accelerate the deployment of PV in developing countries? The Power for the World initiative of the European Union is concerned with all the world, but has a special target for developing countries. This presents a well-reasoned case for meeting basic electricity needs of the villages of the Third World, using PV at the modest rate of 10 Wp per capita, for one billion people. This would require 10 GWp and would be implemented over a 20-25 year time scale, at cost of around USD 60 billion. The strategy for achieving this involves joint ventures and partnerships between industralized and developing countries and the support of donor agencies. Enablement studies are currently underway as part of the European Union's JOULE and APAS Programmes. When do you expect to see such ambitious programmes underway? The technology is reliable and available, the markets are there, political will is expanding, so many of the right ingredients are in place to enable such programmes to go ahead. Large PV development programmes have to start before the close of the millennium if we are to achieve a sustainable energy future. PVPS Task 3 is a mechanism, which will enable this, through international collaboration and sharing of information.

Power for the world The Power for the World Initiative has evolved over a number of years. At the 11th European Photovoltaic Conference in Montreux, Switzerland in October 1992, a Challenge was issued. This called upon the world to take action to overcome the barriers impeding the massive application of PV, and to achieve orders-of-magnitude increases in the production of PV and hence to electrify the planet. Signatories to the Challenge included Patrick Jourde, GENEC and Wolfgang Palz, head of the European Union's Renewable Energy R&D Programme. The International Solar Energy Society's (ISES) Congress in Budapest in August 1993 heard Wolfgang Palz present 'Power for the World' as a Global Photovoltaic Action Plan. This attacked the myth that photovoltaic is too expensive by pointing out that PV already is used in the poorest villages in the world, where it is the cheapest source of electricity. The Action Plan aims to electrify one billion people in more than one million villages. The World Bank Solar Initiative The World Bank is currently developing a programme to further commercialize solar energy technologies - PV, solar-thermal, wind and biomass - in developing countries. This concerns the development of a pipeline of projects suitable for financing by conventional resources, as well as the Global Environmental Facility (GEF). The GEF has recently been replenished with USD 2 billion for the next three years, and half of this could be used for global warming projects, including PV. An indicative target of 50 MWp to 70 MWp of small stand-alone PV systems projects has been suggested. Several advisors have responded that this is too small. The World Bank is now also looking at larger, grid-connected PV systems.

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