Good news, bad news
By
Reinhold Buttgereit, EPIA Secretary General
The year 2012 began with a good news/bad news mix for the solar
photovoltaic industry. The good news? The market for PV has continued to
grow in Europe and around the world (see EPIA’s new “Market
Report 2011” for the full story). The bad news? Some European
governments are backing away from support schemes that in recent years
have helped shrink the competitiveness gap between PV and conventional
electricity sources.
This increasingly unpredictable regulatory climate is one of the key
challenges facing the PV industry, making growth difficult in the
crucial near-term years. Those who want PV, from ordinary citizens to
big businesses to institutional investors, need the assurance that they
can commit to a clean, sustainable, and secure energy source without
having the regulatory rug pulled out from under them. Such government
backtracking threatens future progress.
But support schemes are just one way that policymakers can help foster
PV development. They can also cut the bureaucratic red tape that makes
the installation of a PV system difficult in many countries.
PV LEGAL, a two-and-a-half-year European initiative, has examined 12
key countries’ efforts to reduce administrative barriers to PV, and
according to the project’s new report, the results are decidedly mixed
(for more information, see the full report
here). Clearly, Europe’s policymakers must do more to remove these
barriers if the EU’s RES goals are to be achieved.
People want solar power. Now is not the time for Europe’s policymakers
to discourage them from getting it. Since we are so close to grid parity
in the most important markets, we should not risk what we have achieved
in recent years.
http://www.epia.org/
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