editorial February 2012

Solaris Newsletter

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/