Žygimantas Vaičiūnas, policy director of the European Solar Industry Council, urges residents planning to install solar power plants not to wait for the end of the year and to take advantage not only of the support provided by the ministry, but also of the start of the sunny season, and to get part of the investment return this year.
In the updated draft of the description of financing conditions submitted for coordination by the Ministry of Energy, it is expected that the state will continue to provide support, which is more than a third of the cost of installing a power plant – EUR 255 compensation is expected for 1 kW of a newly installed power plant, and EUR 192 for an increase in the installed power of an already installed 1 kW power plant. .
“Last year, the absolute majority of installed renewable energy resources were solar power plants. And they were installed precisely through the scheme of the producing user. Therefore, support for renewable energy should not be reduced, but continued, and its scope should be increased. We are still not at the point where we can say that renewable energy development is starting to affect electricity prices. However, those generating consumers who install solar power plants earlier experience greater benefits, because the power plants pay off for them faster,” said Ž. Vaičiūnas
He pointed out that in order to ensure consistent growth in the number of producing consumers and energy independence, it is necessary not only to maintain financing for the installation of solar power plants, but also to increase and consistently encourage producing consumers to install not only solar power plants, but also accumulators.
Support for accumulators is tight: residents cannot take advantage of the full benefits of solar power plants
Ž. Vaičiūnas emphasized that in order to increase the number of producing consumers, it is not enough to take advantage of the favorable situation in the market, but it is important not to forget other important areas, especially support for the installation of storage systems.
According to the expert, until now in Lithuania the possibilities of accumulators are not fully used in cases where “Energy Distribution Operator” (ESO) cannot issue technical connection conditions to potential generating users.
in 2023 almost 6 percent residents who applied to ESO did not receive the conditions for connecting solar power plants, such users will only increase in the near future, and accumulators can help residents install solar power plants even in cases where the conditions for connecting ESO solar power plants are limited.
“The entire market is waiting for a more active role of ESO, offering opportunities for residents who are currently unable to connect solar power plants to do so successfully using accumulators. If ESO opens up these opportunities and the Ministry of Energy provides sufficient support, we would have a really big breakthrough in generating consumers in Lithuania”, Ž emphasizes the unexploited potential of solar power plants. Vaičiūnas
“We hear about the plans of the Ministry of Energy to organize a call for support for residents to install accumulators, but we are surprised by the estimated amounts, which are very small. For example, the next expected call is only 3 million. euro volume. This is a very symbolic support, in 2022. 1 million was allocated for this. euros, now the amount of support has been slightly increased, but such amounts really do not demonstrate a serious attitude to encourage residents to install storage tanks”, the interlocutor is convinced.
The market situation is unique
Regarding support for solar power plants, although the support was theoretically higher in the previous two calls, in practice it became unavailable to many residents due to technical glitches in the system.
“It is to be hoped that lessons will be learned from the mistakes and the system will not crash again. Since the total amount of support provided for in the upcoming call for support is much higher, many more residents will be able to benefit from it. For residents building solar power plants, the total cost of the solar power plant including support is important, so now residents would pay less for solar power plants even with reduced support than they paid for the installation of solar power plants one or two years ago,” the interviewer emphasized.
For her part, SoliTek’s sales manager Sandra Garšanikovienė said that the current situation is extremely favorable for those planning to install solar power plants and thereby fix electricity prices.
S. Garšanikovienė said that three things motivate residents to install solar power plants and become producing consumers. These are the price of electricity, the cost of installing solar power plants and the amount of support. She pointed out that although the prices of the modules have decreased, this does not mean that the cost of their installation has also decreased proportionally.
“The price package for installing a solar power plant includes several components: the price of the solar modules themselves, as well as additional equipment such as converters, connectors, prices and labor costs,” the interviewer explained.
According to her, a unique situation has arisen at the moment, when the prices for installing solar power plants in the market have reached the bottom, so more and more residents decide to install them.
“And the support provided enables even more people to fix electricity prices in this way and remain independent of electricity suppliers,” she said.
The pressure of electricity suppliers should be evaluated by VERT
Commenting on the fears that are currently being heard in the public space that the net-billing system may be introduced for household users as well, Ž. Vaičiūnas says that this is a certain pressure from electricity suppliers to try to change the accounting system in relation to “inconvenient” producing consumers.
“Regardless of the means of compensation for the use of electricity networks or for different prices of electricity during its production and consumption, the consumer who produces should always be protected, because there is a principle of legitimate expectations. If consumers have invested under specific conditions, such conditions should be at least until the solar power plant pays off,” the policy director of the European Solar Industry Council is convinced.
According to him, the State Energy Regulatory Council (VERT) should assess in detail whether the losses emphasized by suppliers are justified, because there were periods when electricity suppliers made money from generating consumers.
Currently, there are already 98,316 generating consumers in Lithuania (there are 1.6 million electricity consumers in the country in total), which make up more than 6 percent of all consumers.
Tags: million allocated installation solar power plants euros unique situation arisen market
