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German solar power reaches capacity of a nuclear block! | 11 comments (11 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)
Prices (none / 0)
Indeed PV is much more expensive now. The lowest I have seen is 25 Eurocents/kWh over 20 years, and that was a MW-scale project - private units are more like the double of that.

For scale, here are the German feed-in tariffs for 2004:




capacity < 30 kW30 kW << 100 kW100 kW <
field 45.7 c/kWh
rooftop57.4 c/kWh54.6 c/kWh54 c/kWh
other building-integrated62.4 c/kWh59.6 c/kWh59 c/kWh

Except for the 5 c/kWh bonus for building-integrated non-rooftop (e.g.: windows, walls) units, for new units these tariffs are reduced every year by 5%, thus for example this year:




capacity < 30 kW30 kW << 100 kW100 kW <
field 43.42 c/kWh
rooftop54.53 c/kWh51.87 c/kWh51.3 c/kWh
other building-integrated59.53 c/kWh56.87 c/kWh56.3 c/kWh


*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Mon Aug 1st, 2005 at 04:52:51 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Rates (none / 0)
Can you please expand on this? I don't understand how your PV rates work.

In my town, you can connect a residential PV system to the grid, but you don't get any credit for a negative meter reading (if you generate more electricity than you use). The only "incentive" is that they allow you to connect the PV system to the regular residential system so you don't need to have a duplicate or complicated in-house network.

Are you allowed to sell residential PV energy back to the grid?

by asdf on Mon Aug 1st, 2005 at 09:30:05 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Re: Rates (none / 0)
Not only allowed: it is obligatory (vis-a-vis distributors). It is for all types of regenerative energy if network specifications are fulfilled, but with different feed-in tariffs for different types. (For example, for geothermal, it is between 15 and 7.16 c/kWh depending on size; for wind, it is currently at least 5.39 c/kWh, upped to 8.53 for a limited time for units exceeding predictions by 50%, and 9.1 c/kWh for off-shore units.)

BTW, while I was speaking about Germany, my own country (Hungary) has a rather crappy version of feed-in tariffs (tailor-made for the large electricity companies, consequently with almost no usage). However, the German system is now copied in many European countries in some form.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Mon Aug 1st, 2005 at 10:23:19 AM EST
[ Parent ]

German solar power reaches capacity of a nuclear block! | 11 comments (11 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)
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