Sweden allocates $80 million for solar rebates in 2019

The Swedish government has announced that the budget for the solar rebate program will reach a total of 736 million SEK ($79.9 million) in 2019.

This is lower than the SEK 915 million allocated in several phases last year, but is considerably higher than the sum of SEK 400 million which the government earmarked in 2017 and the SEK 436 million budget that had originally been announced for this year.

Furthermore, the government has decided to reduce the rebate percentage from 30% to 20%, after in 2018 it was increased the opposite way. “The new support percentage is applied at the time of the decision and thus also applies to applications that are now in the queue,” the government said. “This enables the investment support for solar systems to be provided for more projects than previously forecast.”

Overall, the Swedish Energy Agency, Energimyndigheten has devoted SEK 3.0 billion ($323 million) to the solar rebate program for the period 2009 to 2019.

Thanks to the highest levels of the budget for 2017 and 2018, Sweden had a record year in new installations in 2018 with newly deployed capacity reaching about 180 MW. Under the program, homeowners, businesses and public organizations are entitled to receive an initial investment support part of the costs for purchasing and installing a rooftop PV installation.

Systems installed under the scheme can also participate to the Norwegian-Swedish electricity certificate system.