Germany aims to significantly accelerate the expansion of solar energy as part of its new comprehensive photovoltaic strategy.
Speaking at the second PV summit, Federal Economics and Climate Protection Minister Robert Habeck said: “Photovoltaics is one of the cheapest energy sources of all and is one of the most important sources of electricity generation in the future.
“By 2030, the share of renewable energies in gross electricity consumption should be 80%. With an installed capacity of 215GW by 2030, photovoltaics should make an important contribution here. This shows that we have a lot of work ahead of us.
“But we can see that construction is picking up. Last year it was over 7GW. An interim target of 9GW applies for the current year. The chances that we will achieve this interim goal are good: in the first quarter of 2023, almost 2.7GW were newly installed.
“With the strategy presented today, we want to significantly accelerate the expansion and release all the brakes that have so far prevented a faster expansion.”
The photovoltaic strategy lays out plans to increase ground-mounted systems by 11GW per year from 2026. In addition, the strategy calls for 11GW per year from 2026 for roof-mounted solar systems.
The plan also aims to significantly speed up and simplify the grid connections of both ground-mounted systems and roof systems.
It also calls for regulations to promote the installation of solar panels on communal building balconies.
Furthermore, it envisions increasing the number of skilled workers for the manufacture, planning, installation and maintenance of PV systems, among other things by increasing the number of training opportunities and advanced training courses.
The implementation of the strategy will begin immediately after its publication, with some of the measures to be submitted to the cabinet before the summer break as part of the so-called “Solar Package I”.