“Vote for tenant electricity”

Germany’s parliament (Bundestag) has voted to allow tenants to directly source their electricity from solar panels on their roofs, the parliament has said in a press release. The so-called “tenant electricity” concept says that landlords receive a premium when they provide solar power directly to the residents or neighbours of a house and do not use the grid to sell the power elsewhere. About 3.8 million households could benefit from the new rules, according to a study by the economy ministry (BMWi), the Bundestag says. “We’re increasing the Energiewende’s impact in the cities,” the governing conservatives (CDU/CSU) said. The opposition Left Party and Green Party claimed that taxation considerations might keep landlords from selling their solar power this way. They also argued the limitation of premiums to 500 megawatt per year was far from exploiting tenant electricity’s full potential.

Read the press release in German here.

See the CLEW dossier Cities, municipalities, and the Energiewende for more information.