THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 1996.

U.S. EXPORT COUNCIL FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY

WITNESS

SCOTT SKLAR, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SOLAR ENERGY INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION

Mr. CALLAHAN. Mr. Sklar.

Mr. SKLAR. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I represent the Solar Industries Consortium of the Renewable Energy Industry US/ECRE, the trade consortium of the six renewable energy efficiency industry associations.

We have 2 billion people without power on this globe. We have another billion people who get electricity 10 hours a day. Our industries sell to the developing world over $3.5 billion a year of technology. We come to ask for continued support, and want to thank the subcommittee in 1996 for asking for level funding for the AID Office of Environment and Technology. The $20 million helps drive U.S. technology overseas, and we are asking for level funding for fiscal year 1997.

To bring it to your interests, this is one of the activities we do. You are interested in child survival; 20 to 71 percent of vaccine refrigerators-vaccines go bad every year because they are relying on diesel and propane. We work with UNICEF and WHO to understand that program. We want to educate people to learn that you can save money by doing this. That is what this kind of program does.

What I want to tell you is that driving a small aid program to work with the United States private sector, one, helps these countries help themselves; two, gives them some economic wealth of their own; three, creates U.S. jobs.

The U.S. market for photovoltaics, for instance, the United States industry is growing; 80 percent of our technology is exported. I have ribbon-cut four plants in the United States-in Texas, Washington, Michigan and Virginia, and we have three more that would be introduced by the end of the year; and we have three joint ventures overseas by United States industry in Russia, South Africa, India. This came as an education process in developing the Third World market and is going to create jobs.

The plant in Michigan is putting out a new technology, solar roofing shingles. This provides electricity, the first in the world. We lead technologically. So a villager that needs light can put that on their roof, a couple of these shingles, and it can light a light, charge a battery, give them refrigeration for the first time.

Solar driven engines-this is a picture of the concentrator, and it replaces diesel engines. The strategy is a global strategy in the developing world.

Why are we here? We want to ask you to do two things. Last year in report language that was in the House, and the Senate copled you and it was in conference, you said, level-fund environment technologies. We understand that is not going to happen. We want you to ask, where is the money coming from, how much is being directed in 10 excluding mission buy-ins, because that is a black hole.

In fiscal year 1997, we would like you to target-we are not asking-if you cut aid overall 20 percent, our programs deserve to be cut proportionally.

Lastly, in the 1997 report we have all these other programsAID funds and child survival, population, democratization; all rely on unsustainable energy sources. We are buying Japanese and European diesels for 80 percent of these projects. We lead technologically, and we are subsidizing our competition in unsustainable way.

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We need to create activities in these programs for education so we can take the materials and the technical support that drive new technology from this central program at AID and share the knowledge. Once you know a cellular phone works and how to use it beyond the wire, it is the same education to know how a photovoltaic panel works beyond the wire. That is what we are trying to do, is drive new technology.

That is my pitch. I think we pay for ourselves. The sales show that we pay many times from the growth of these industries, and it is all U.S.-based.

Thank you.

Mr. CALLAHAN. We appreciate your testimony, sir.

There must be some exciting days ahead with technology development. This is the first time I have seen the shingles.

Mr. SKLAR. It is the first year they have been coming off a manufacturing line.

Mr. CALLAHAN. What happens when you put a nail in?

Mr. SKLAR. Nothing. What other technology source can generate electricity, no emissions?

Mr. CALLAHAN. You could have auxiliary electricity at home.

Mr. SKLAR. To make this commonplace, you have to increase manufacturing capacity. That is all this is. That is why this market is also important. This is our big export market in these technologies.

Thanks for hearing me out.

[The information follows:]

US/ECRE

UNITED STATES EXPORT COUNCIL FOR RENEWABLE ENERGY 122 C STREET N W, 4TH FLOOR, WASHINGTON, DC 20001-2109 202 383 2550

INTRODUCTION

The U.S. Export Council for Renewable Energy (US/ECRE), the trade consortium of the six renewable energy and energy efficiency industry associations, urges the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations to stick with its strong guidance to the Agency for International Development (AID) to integrate renewable energy applications in our bilateral programs. Renewable energy can significantly enhance the environment, agriculture, healthcare, development and infrastructure programs in a meaningful way.

Our recommendations for FY '97 are for $20 million for AID's OEET within the Center for Environment as well as level funding for the Center's other programs. These recommendations mirror the previous guidance of this Subcommittee, as well as the growth in opportunities of the U.S. renewable energy industries in an era of reprioritization of AID's programs, and the implementation of sustainable private sector projects in the developing world.

The Subcommittee should realize that developing country activities to promote renewable energy have increased significantly. India represents the largest market and Mexico is electrifying nearly 60,000 villages beyond the existing electric utility grid. The renewable energy options, in this case, micro-hydropower, photovoltaics and wind, are the least-cost options to provide electricity to a population that would otherwise be unserved for generations. Similar efforts are about to be initiated in Indonesia (48,000 villages), Sri Lanka (20,000 villages), South Africa (35,000 villages) and Brazil (22,000 villages). The real issue is whether the United States or our competitors will garner the dominant marketshare of these new and emerging markets.

These immense impending market and development opportunities, which will surpass $4 billion in aggregate by the year 2000, require an unusual focus and resolve of the United States' development and export agencies to work hand-in-hand with the U.S. renewable energy industries. Therefore, recommendations will effectively promote environmentally benign U.S. technologies, principally biomass, energy efficiency, geothermal energy, hydropower, photovoltaics, solar thermal, and wind energy.

In photovoltaics for instance, the developing world markets with the help of AID's Center for Environment, specifically the Office of Energy, Environment and Technology have contributed to the increase of U.S. solar manufacturing capacity. The following manufacturing facility openings represent this increase:

October 1996, Solarex Corporation, a business unit of Amoco/Enron Solar held its groundbreaking for a new state-of-the-art, 10 megawatt per year amorphous silicon photovoltaics plant in James City County, Virginia

November 1995, Cummins Power Generation opened it new 46,000 square foot solar dish stirling engine factory in Abilene, Texas

• February 1996, United Solar Systems Corporation held a groundbreaking for a new thin-film photovoltaics manufacturing plant in Troy, Michigan

⚫ February 1996, Siemens Solar Industries held a groundbreaking ceremony for its new photovoltaics roofing shingle manufacturing facility in Vancouver, Washington.

In addition, Spire Corporation of Bedford, Massachusetts announced in a ceremony in August 1995, the opening of a photovoltaics module manufacturing facility as a joint venture with SUNCorp Holdings near Johannesburg, South Africa with an annual production capacity of nearly a megawatt per year with the market for PV-based power in South Africa now at 10 megawatts per year and rising to 300 megawatts in fifteen years. Furthermore, Energy Conversion Devices announced the completion of its Photovoltaic manufacturing plant in Russia and Amoco/Enron announced a 25 year power purchase agreement (PPA) in India, which will provide for the sale of up to 50 megawatts of photovoltaic electricity.

The failure of the United States to position itself as a market leader on the range of emerging energy technologies hinders not only our competitive position, but also encourages dependency by the poorest countries of the world to export their precious resources and foreign exchange in order to import energy. This encouragement of fossil fuel dependence insures that these developing countries will be unable to grow out of debt, leaving them with fewer resources to acquire a broad range of U.S. produced goods and services.

The U.S. renewable energy industries are asking the Subcommittee to adopt and maintain clear, consistent, and determined mandates for the Agency for International Development. The goal would be to implement a strategic development plan in cooperation with the U.S. renewable energy industries and the AID Mission Directors to promote these technologies in a cost-effective and systemic way to promote sustainable development.

FY '96 APPROPRIATIONS AND DIRECTIVES

The U.S. Export Council for Renewable Energy asserts that an essential ingredient for increased Third World democratization must be a substantial increase in the utilization of renewable energy. If sustainable development by the Third World is to be ultimately achieved, it must rely on the use of renewable indigenous resources to build worldwide economic growth. And finally, the only way to significantly achieve the kind of world market penetration needed to accomplish these goals is to develop policies and create new financing tools to aggregate markets which will significantly lower the costs of renewable energy to make these technologies accessible to the world's peoples.

The renewable energy and energy efficiency industries want to bring to your attention one of the most successful private sector-driven programs within the Agency for International Development through its Office of Energy, Environment and Technology.

Over the last five years, this subcommittee with bipartisan support, has been explicitly directed funding for AID's Energy Office at a consistent level of $20 million for innovative replicable renewable energy and efficiency projects.