Germany, which is the top photovoltaic installer in the world, has now come up with a new law that would impact the country’s renewable energy market in an adverse way.
Under the new law, domestic operators of renewable energy plants will have to pay 50 percent of the country’s renewable energy surcharge, which is currently €0.624 per kilowatt hour, as per news reports.
The move is part of the Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to lower the cost of the country’s transition away from nuclear power to renewable energy.
The new law is likely come into effect by August 1.
The industrial sector will be exempt from the new financial burden— they will have to pay only 15 percent of the surcharge; but domestic operators of renewable energy plants will be deeply affected by the new law as they have to pay 50 percent of the surcharge, which amounts to €0.312 per kilowatt hour. Renewable energy users were previously exempt from the surcharge.
The new bill also sets an installation target of 2,500 MW a year. The new regulations would also set a new base digression of 0.5 percent. If the range is exceeded by up to 900 MW, this will increase to 1 percent.
Additionally the government has set an overall cap of 52 GW for solar subsidies and a pilot tender program for ground-mounted PV systems.
Germany is currently ranked No.1 PV installer, with solar PV capacity of 35.996 GW at the end of February 2014.
The German new solar PV installations increased by about 7.6 GW in 2012, and solar PV provided 18 TWh of electricity in 2011, about 3 percent of total electricity. The country has set a goal of producing 35 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and 100 percent by 2050.