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.