L R AS Published on Saturday 11 April 2020 - n° 317 - Categories:Germany

Germany celebrates 20 years of the EEG Act

Germany is celebrating the 20th anniversary of the EEG Act. This law has contributed to the installation of almost 50 GW in the country, and to an annual volume of global installations that has increased from 500 MW in 2000 to 123 GW in 2019.

Wacker is always

the world's No. 2 in silicon. The standard panels, which were 130 Wp / m² (maximum), will reach 200 Wp / m² by the end of 2019. The power per panel has increased from around 80 W to 320 Wp. The efficiency of the photovoltaic inverters has increased from 80% to 99%, so that the yield per kWp has increased by more than 20%.

Due to the further development of power electronics in PV systems, it is now possible to actively plan them with shading, for example in winter. This leads to a two to three times higher space efficiency for open-air or flat roof systems compared to the situation 20 years ago.

The production costs of a photovoltaic system per kWp have decreased from more than €12,000 at the end of the 1990s to "€500 / kWp in large megawatt systems". Prices per kWh of solar energy have fallen from more than 50 cents / kWh for all small power plants in 2000, to less than 4 cents / kWh in Germany, and even to 1.50 cents / kWh in Dubai power plants.

Production capacities will continue to be massively expanded, so that by 2021 we will already have more than 200 GW of "state of the art" production capacity. We can also expect to add 500 GW per year during this decade, which would be a thousand times more than the installations of the year 2000. Electricity from new nuclear power plants is also much more expensive, as can be seen in the United Kingdom or France. And since solar electricity is now much cheaper than coal-fired electricity, in some countries existing power plants are operating less frequently. Buildings of such generators are being scaled down or abandoned because they are no longer profitable.

Solar power is becoming the main climate protection technology.

PV Magazine of 9 April

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