Belgium solar energy grows against the current

BRUSSELS – Although subsidies and tax benefits are being cut, solar panels in Belgium become cheaper every day. 2011 renounced all pessimistic predictions and set a new record with 880 Megawatt new installed PV modules. Experts predict the same growth in 2012. Especially in the industrial market, where companies still enjoy tax reductions.

Early 2011, experts thought  the solar market would collapse due to decreasing subsidies. ,,But prices decreased also in a way that consumers paid less for their panels in the end. In retrospect, all panic was for nothing. In Flanders 600 new Megawatt was installed and in the entire country 880 Megawatt, making 2011 the best year ever,” CEO Alex Polfliet of Zero Emission Solutions (ZES) states. The author of several books on renewable energy served ten years as an advisor for the state secretary of energy, before starting his own successful company.

According to Polfliet, in 2012 history will repeat itself. Even though the market is slow now, caused by negative media reports of tax benefits on solar panels being ended. Polfliet: ,,Newspapers wrote that the payback period was extended with five years, but that’s not true. Prices dropped again so it takes people seven years to earn back their money on panels that last for twenty years.”
After Germany, Belgium comes second in the world, when the installed solar power per capita is compared, ZES calculated. Polfliet believes that in 2015 or 2016 electricity from your roof will be cheaper than from the grid. After that point subsidies are no longer needed.

Polfliet is one of the speakers during the Solar Future conference , held on March 28th in Area 42 in Brussels. CEO’s, professionals and experts will speak there about investment opportunities, innovation and all kinds of solar projects.

SolarAccess has a lot of experience with large roof projects. The company installs en exploits solar panels globally. Thought consumers saw their tax benefits disappear, companies can still deduct 13,5 percent of their investments. ,,Especially in Wallonia we see a lot of business opportunities for solar panels on large buildings,” country manager Tom Pollyn says.
He thinks consumers should not step back now. ,,All this reserve is unnecessary.  In Flanders we were a bit spoiled in the last few years, when the payback period was four to five years. Now its six to seven years.”
Solarplaza organises the second Solar Future conference due to last year’s success. ,,Now is the time to show Belgium it still pays to invest in solar energy,” says Paul van der Linden of Solarplaza.

2011 was the new record year for installations in Flanders

From data from the VREG, it appears that already more applications for solar installations were approved in November 2011 than for the whole of 2009, which was the former top year for solar in Belgium.

The peak of solar installations in 2011 did not come as a surprise. Still the industry experienced some heavy shocks. The industry association of installers and manufacturers were astonished when, then minister of Energy, Freya Van den Bossche (SP.A) cut heavily in the subsidies.

At the end of 2011 they could happily look back. According to the most recent data of the VREG, Flanders counted 167.420 installations for which the green certificates were approved.

69.197 of these are new solar installations that were taken in use bevore 30 November. This was a strong increase in comparison with 2010, when just 32.876 installations were connected. In 2011 the record of 2009, which counted 50.003 new installations, was also broken. And then to think that in 2007 the whole of Flanders only had 3019 installations.

Subsidy Cuts

The peak of 2009 was the result of the announcement of the subsidy cuts of 2010. In stead of the 450 euro of minimum support per certificat for twenty yeard, consumers only got 350 euro from 1 January 2010.

In 2011 too, the peak was a result of new subsidy cuts: from 1 January 2011 the subsidy per certificat was decreased to 330, from 1 July of that year to 300 and from 1 October 2011 to 270.

In 2012 this decline will be continued: from 1 January 2012 you get 250 euro, 230 from 1 April and 210 from 1 July until the end of december 2012. After that the subsidies will continuously be decreased to end on 90 euro from 2016. On top of that the term will be decreased from 20 years to 15 years from 2013 on. The subsidy you’ll get will be dependent on the date of connection.

Flamac and imec combine expertise to develop new materials for solar cells

Imec, a leading nanoelectronics research center based in Leuven (Belgium) is working together with Flamac, a division of SIM vzw (Strategisch Initiatief Materialen in Vlaanderen or Strategic Initiative Materials in Flanders) to develop novel semiconductor materials for solar cell applications. Within this collaboration novel materials are screened as an alternative for the standard solar cells made of copper indium gallium and selenium (CIGS).

Flamac’s recently installed PVD (Physical Vapour Deposition) / PE-CVD (Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapour Deposition) coater allows the automated deposition of a variety of thin film materials. The platform consists of 8 process chambers enabling the study of PVD and PE-CVD coating processes. This coating system combined with the variety of high-throughput analytic tools available at Flamac represents a powerful screening platform for accelerated screening of novel materials.

Imec’s research on solar cells focuses on improving the state-of-the-art efficiency and manufacturability of a number of key technologies, most notably silicon-based solar cells, and thin-film solar cells such as organic solar cells and printed inorganic cells based on nanoparticle inks. Imec’s thin-film solar cell activities are integrated in the Solliance collaboration platform and in the SIM SoPPoM program. Solliance’s ambition is to strengthen the position of the Eindhoven-Leuven-Aachen triangle (ELAT region) as a world player in thin film PV. Solliance aims to realize this ambition by joint use of state-of-the-art infrastructure, alignment of research programs, and close cooperation with the solar business community. The SIM SoPPoM program, supported by the Flemish Government, aims to create new, promising printing technologies thus enabling more efficient and cheaper processes to lead to further spread of PV-technology.

“Enabling R&D centres like imec to speed up their materials development is exactly what Flamac aims to achieve. I’m delighted that Flamac and imec have initiated a partnership in this application area,” says Johan Paul, manager of Flamac, a division of SIM.

“We consider the cooperation with Flamac as an essential part in the broadening of our PV-portfolio. By combining Flamac’s expertise in high-throughput material research with our expertise in thin-film solar cells, we are convinced that we will achieve interesting results in a shorter timeframe. This broadening allows us to maximize the valorization opportunities in Flanders and is a new important step in the strengthening of the ELAT region in the domain of thin-film solar cell technology as we strive to together with Solliance;” commented Jef Poortmans, Program Director Energy at imec.

Belgian Solar Market Cooling Down Following End of 2009 Boom

By Peter J. Segaar, Polder PV

Accumulated photovoltaic capacity in Belgium could be 740 MW* end of 2010, with an 88% share for Flanders. Growth rate has deteriorated, but the market for smaller installations remains promising.

Growth in Belgium’s largest market, Flanders, regulated by VREG, has cooled down in 2010. There was a big rush at the end of 2009 (11.000 installation requests in December), but it is not yet clear to which “realization” year these installations will be allocated. According to official VREG publications, there are some striking differences in the data published by branch organization BelPV, as shown in Fig. 1.
With 245,1 MW growth** (2009) and the accumulation of 334,3 (2009) and 654,4 MW (2010), preliminary VREG-registered growth in 2010 would be 320,1 MW. However, BelPV claims 412,7 MW accumulation in 2009 and 165,0 MW in 2010. These huge differences most probably result from diverging interpretations of what should be considered a “grid-connected PV system.” Adding together the 2009-2010 growth numbers, the difference is only 2,2%: VREG 565,2 MW, BelPV 577,7 MW. BelPV estimated that for additional PV-capacity in 2009, households in Flanders would have paid 0,13 Eurocents/kWh extra on their average electricity price (€ 0,17/kWh).

Registration of the larger installations such as the 40 MW Katoen Natie project can take a long time. However, 64% of applications in this category would be handled within 2 months by VREG. Smaller systems of up to 10 kW apparently are registered on a more regular basis, see Fig. 3. In Flanders, large-scale power plants >1 MW accounted for 77 MW of accumulated capacity (fig.2) - almost 29% of the volume of the >10 kW category, and 9% of the total capacity.

Fig. 3 shows newly VREG-registered capacities on an average daily basis per period, with trend lines. >10 kW installations (green columns) are unevenly distributed, with high capacities in May and July 2010. Growth collapsed in January 2011, and it is expected that with new tariff cuts for solar electricity this market segment might face further troubles. However, new registrations for the small category (blue columns) remain at a healthy, relatively constant level (roughly 300-600 kW/day), apart from the small “end-of-year 2010 rush” (816 kW/day).

In December 2010, just prior to a 2 Eurocent/kWh cut in feed-in tariffs, 6.000 new requests would have been filed with VREG. This used to be 2.500 per month earlier in the year. In Flanders, approximately 60% of the accumulated capacity of 670 MW reached end of Jan. 2011 falls within the <=10 kW category. Approximately 106 W/inhabitant has been realized (in nominal DC power that could be 118 Wp/inhabitant, as compared to 192 Wp/inhabitant in Germany at the end of November).

Photo 1. Not uncommon in Belgium: PV modules on old building in Gent.
Copyright Peter Segaar 2011

Flanders is now confronted with a legislation proposal, which was very slightly changed following a storm of protest by the solar industry in November 2010, that will further bring down the value of green certificates for PV from today’s € 0,33/kWh in 3-month steps each of 2-4 Eurocent/kWh. >1 MW installations with less than 50% self-consumption will be hit hardest, reaching € 0,09/kWh in 2012. BelPV claims, however, that 200 MW of new PV capacity could be added in 2011.

Wallonia has performed less well than previously, and on a much smaller scale. CWaPE reported 37,3 MW capacity in new installations in 2009**, and the Brussels magazine Hernieuws estimated 80 MW end-of-year capacity for 2010, which gives a growth of 33 MW for that year. In view of the abolishment of regional incentives apart from a complicated green certificate regime, it is a fair but relatively minor market. 95% of installations are residential, 2010 resulting in an accumulation of 24 W/inhabitant.

Regulator Brugel reported in June 2010 that the capital, Brussels, had added 3,4 MW of capacity in 2009** (accumulation: 4,1 MW). Hernieuws suggested accumulations of 4,2 MW (2009) and 5,1 MW for 2010. Hence, a meagre growth of only 0,9 MW in 2010, possibly due to the abolishment of a regional incentive without compensation in the green certificate legislation (as in the case of Wallonia). Mostly small installations have been realized, with a few 50-100 kW projects reported (2009-2010). Only 5,1 W/inhabitant would have accumulated at the end of 2010.

As shown in Fig. 4, the end of 2010 saw an accumulated volume of approximately 740 MW in Belgium, enabling the country to establish its 5th position in the EU ranks, before France. 88% of capacity is in Flanders. While Hernieuws and VREG data totalled up to 385 MW for Belgium in 2009, EurObserv’ER recently counted 363 MWp DC capacity. Based on the original AC data, 2010 could have seen growth of 354 MW. With a population of 10,8 million, the country as a whole would have reached a level of 68 W of installed solar capacity per inhabitant (75 Wp DC).

*MW = MWac (inverter capacity)
**Data EurObserv’ER Report Renewables in Europe 2009 (DC capacity): Growth in 2009 251 MWp Flanders, 38 MWp Wallonia, and 3,1 MWp in Brussels.
 
Sources: Apere, BelPV, BRUGEL, CWaPE, Energeia, EurObserv’ER, Express, Hernieuws, Nieuwsblad, ODE, VREG

Internationalisering Zonne-energie Markt Zet Door

ROTTERDAM 7 MAART 2011 - Zonne-energie houdt niet op bij de grenzen. De internationalisering van deze sector leidt nu al tot grote voordelen voor producenten en vooral ook consumenten, een trend die zich in 2011 en 2012 voortzet.

Mario Zen, de VP Business Development van LDK Solar, een van de grootste producenten van zonnepanelen ter wereld, is zeer optimistisch over de internationalisering. “Dit jaar wordt een mooi jaar,” zegt Zen, “In het Midden-Oosten, Zuid-Amerika en Afrika liggen enorm veel kansen. Maar vooral de razendsnelle ontwikkeling die we zien in India heeft ons aangenaam verrast.” Natuurlijk blijft ook Europa niet achter. Zen verwacht vooral sterke groei in Italië, de Benelux en het Verenigd Koninkrijk. “Wat Europa onderscheidt van de rest van de wereld is de grote vraag naar installaties op daken. Dat is een hele democratische vorm van energievoorziening, want iedereen heeft wel een dak.”

Mario Zen is één van de sprekers op het congres The Solar Future: Belgium, voor iedereen die met zonne-energie bezig is. Solarplaza is de organisator van dit congres dat op 23 maart aanstaande in Brussel plaatsvindt.

In een aantal Europese landen staan subsidieregelingen op de tocht. Desondanks leidt volgens Mario Zen de groeiende vraag tot aantrekkelijkere prijzen voor de consument. Bedrijven als LDK maken daar zelfs een prioriteit van, zegt Zen: “Spelers die volledig geïntegreerd zijn, hebben een voorsprong op het gebied van kostenreductie. Zelfs in volwassen markten blijft dat een krachtig punt waar iedereen van profiteert, van grote zonnecentrales tot de kleinste individuele dakinstallatie.”