Comments on: 211 MW Of New Solar Photovoltaic Capacity Added In Germany In February

By: Bob_Wallace

Bob_Wallace — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 16:55:00 +0000

Please show me some math…

I’d like to see your calculations which make battery storage cheaper than using grid-connected solar.

Massive subsidies might make that true, but that’s an artificial situation.

By: Jouni Valkonen

Jouni Valkonen — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 05:30:00 +0000

Thomas, FIT is not the One And Only Way to subsidy roof-top solar electricity. It is good for utility scale, but it is not good for households, because tech has already evolved that batteries are cheap enough to be feasible for households. Therefore there are no reasons for households to feed solar energy back to the grid, because with proper subsidies they can store electricity for later usage.

On the other hand, FIT is now slowing down the installations of roof-top solar, because it inhibits on-site usage of power by making it less affordable. FIT was good before 2010, but it is not good anymore in near future, because battery technology is cheap enough to be feasible with subsidies.

By: ThomasGerke

ThomasGerke — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:31:00 +0000

Feed in Tarifs were thought up as a policy incentive to industrialize photovoltaics => cause a price decline…

There were scientific studies & commission reports back in the 1990s that pretty well predicted the current low PV-Installation and per kWh costs IF a mass market would lead to mass production.

A 1996 Report by the commision to “Protect the climate” claimed that 10-17 cent/kWh could be possible by 2010 and 5-10 cent / kWh could be possible by 2020…. and that’s where we are heading.

Used to be utopian optimism… became reality cause technology markets are predictable.

By: Jouni Valkonen

Jouni Valkonen — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 07:23:00 +0000

FIT does not suit very well for roof-top solar, because the point of roof-top solar is to reduce the dependency on expensive grid electricity. It would be better to subsidize directly the installation costs of roof-top solar panels and battery storage.

By: arne-nl

arne-nl — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 20:26:00 +0000

This article: http://cleantechnica.com/2013/04/02/citigroup-solar-modules-could-fall-to-25-centswatt-by-2020/ states:

“The Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics, suggests that the starting point is higher than most current estimates, and predicts solar PV will not fall much below $140/MWh by 2020, and then make little progress over the following decade.”

Current exchange rate €/AU$ is 1.23. AU$ 140/MWh = 114 €/MWh = 0.114€/kWh.

So the German feed-in tariff for large scale solar installations is now (April 2013) below what “The Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics” sets as the lower bound for 2020. In Australia (at least 1.5x insolation of Germany).

We still have to see if any installations will apply for that tariff, but we can already conclude that the prediction of “The Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics,” is at least questionable. Or did I miss something?

By: James Wimberley

James Wimberley — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 18:45:00 +0000

It looks as if Altmeier and Rösler are achieving their goal of halting Germany’s solar boom not so much by FIT cuts, which were always built in to the EEG, but by creating a grey cloud of US-style policy uncertainty. Germans can’t be sure any longer that FIT promises will be honoured.