Germany allocates more funds for PV storage incentives

Germany’s Federal Ministry for Economics Affairs and Energy has decided to increase the budget for the incentive scheme for storage systems combined with small-sized PV installations, due to increasing demand.

The ministry has not revealed exactly the amount of additional funds that will be granted to the program, which is managed by the German development bank KfW. The German government, however, has said that approximately 10,000 incentive applications will be accepted for the program in 2017 thanks to the additional financial resources. If achieved, this target is 50% higher than the previous one set by the ministry, which was just 5,000 applications.

At the same time, the government has confirmed that the repayment subsidy will drop as planned from 19% to 16% starting from July 1, and further cut by 3% starting from October 1. October’s reduction was originally planned to be introduced on January 1, 2018.

The ministry has also announced the digression levels of the repayment subsidy for 2018. At the beginning of next year, the repayment subsidy will be reduced to 10%. This reduction is mainly due to the reduction in costs for buying a PV storage system.

In October last year, KfW had to place the subsidy (not the loans) on hold, as the funds for the whole of 2016 had been exhausted. Last year, KfW approved 6,500 loans and repayment subsidies for PV+storage systems for a total amount of €105 million. Close to 5,700 applications were filed for battery storage in combination with a newly installed PV system; 800 of these were for storage to be retrofitted on to an existing installation.

As for the first five months of this year, KfW had accepted 3,200 incentive applications as of the end of May.

“We are sure that the new funds allocated by the Ministry of Economy will enable the continuation of the program in the current year,” a spokesperson from KfW told pv magazine.