Following the regular reduction of 10 % in the feed-in tariff (FiT) for the electricity fed into the grid by PV installations at the beginning of the year, the new German Environment Minister, Norbert Röttgen, revealed drastic cutbacks in the FiT for solar-generated electricity back in February. Depending on the amount of installed capacity by the end of September 2010, Angela Merkel's government announced that the FiT could fall by around 40% from that offered at the beginning of 2010.
Now however, the German government has decided to limit the cutbacks after considerable pressure from the PV sector. It now plans a cut of 15% for solar arrays built after 1 July 2010. The FiT for arrays located on conversion sites such as former dumps and army bases will be cut by 11%, while rooftop systems will receive a FIT some 16% less than planned. The draft also establishes that solar arrays located on farmland will no longer be entitled to subsidies as from 1 July.
Shares up
Leading PV company, Q-Cells, saw its shares rise on the Frankfurt stock exchange by 5.2% during Tuesday, closing at €7.84. “There’s going to be a shift to conversion, but the scope is going to be more limited,” Andreas Haenel, Chief Executive Officer of Phoenix Solar, told Bloomberg in a phone interview. A cut of “11 percent may be feasible for selected sites, but it is getting very hard from 2011 onwards.”
Legal experts from Angela Merkel’s three-party coalition met yesterday and bashed out an “agreement on all points” of the draft bill, Birgit Homburger, Free Democratic parliamentary head, told reporters in the German capital, adding that the draft will now be presented to Cabinet for consideration.
The changes to the FIT for PV solar energy will be discussed by the federal parliament in Berlin on Friday.
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