Solar power industry’s business climate reaches all-time high in Germany

The business climate index of Germany’s solar power industry has reached a new all-time high in the first months of 2019, a survey by national solar power lobby group BSW Solar has revealed. “Revenue and employment figures are on the rise. We expect double-digit growth rates this year,” BSW Solar head Carsten Körnig said, arguing that technological innovation and a growing awareness of climate action allowed the industry to have a very optimistic outlook. Körnig said he expected the German government to set much higher expansion goals for solar power soon as the technology was key for reaching the country’s emissions reduction targets and had almost reached financial independence from state support thanks to falling costs. “When installing new power production capacities, solar power almost can no longer be beaten in terms of acceptance, expansion speed and cost-benefit-ratio,” he said. According to the BSW Solar, one in two house owners in Germany considers installing solar panels on their roof and one in four thinks about setting up their own e-car filling station.

After a boom period in the early 2000s, Germany’s solar power industry experienced a severe setback after 2010 due to falling support rates and cheaper competition from panel producers in China. However, falling costs also boosted the interest of investors in solar technology, leading to a resurgence in the industry’s business climate and expansion figures in the country. Two projects that are set to operate completely without any financial support recently made headlines, one being a rather small installation by energy company BayWa Re that is to be constructed still in 2019, and the other a large-scale project by utility EnBW that is said to be constructed by 2020.