New installations of solar thermal arrays slow in 2018
Clean Energy Wire
The roll-out of solar thermal installations in Germany slowed down in 2018 despite an ongoing construction boom. The number of new installations dropped to 71,000 from 78,000 in 2017, pushing up the total number of solar thermal installations to around 2.4 million, according to the German Solar Association (BSW). BSW warned that the rate of new installations was too slow given Germany’s climate targets, and called for improvements in public incentive programmes, which it said were “often unknown and incomplete.”
Solar thermal collectors directly use the sun’s energy to heat water or buildings. In contrast, solar PV arrays generate electricity. There are more than 1.6 million solar PV arrays in Germany.