Germany needs major solar PV boom to achieve climate targets - BDEW
Clean Energy Wire
The German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW) is calling for the country’s solar photovoltaic (PV) target to be raised from 100 to 150 gigawatts by 2030. In a newly published strategy paper, the BDEW says the country’s current target, while sounding ambitious, “is hardly sufficient to achieve the European and the more stringent national climate target for 2030”. To achieve greater installed capacity, the BDEW is pushing for more surface space, less bureaucracy, more attractive framework conditions and innovative concepts. “The climate targets in Germany can only be achieved with the massive expansion of photovoltaics,” the BDEW writes in the paper. In order to achieve the goal, additional capacity of at least 10 gigawatts a year until 2030 is necessary, it adds. The association also calls for renewable energy tender volumes for roof and ground-mounted PV systems to be increased to at least 5 gigawatts each. In order to accelerate the expansion, the BDEW says PV must become more attractive for homeowners and businesses. To that end, system operators should be free to choose whether to use their solar power themselves, supply it to third parties in the residential area or sell it on the market. "Bureaucratic barriers to rooftop photovoltaics must be resolutely eliminated," the BDEW adds. It also stresses that the expansion must not be hampered by a lack of space. Potential surface space for solar farms must be expanded and exploited, including innovative concepts such as floating PV systems and agrivoltaics. “The long-term goal is an energy market that makes direct and indirect support programmes or subsidies for photovoltaic and other renewable energy systems superfluous by making highly attractive uses of photovoltaics possible.”
The German government recently brought forward its climate neutrality target by five years to 2045 and increased its emissions reduction targets for 2030 to 65 percent instead of 55 percent. To reach these goals, the Wuppertal Institue for climate, energy and environment recommends the next German government ensures a faster renewables ramp-up and earlier coal phase-out.
