Austria accepts 100,000 applications in solar rebate scheme

Around 90,000 of the accepted applications in the latest round of Austria’s rebate scheme came from homeowners, and approximately 30,000 include the installation of battery storage.

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From pv magazine Germany

The Austrian energy agency, OeMAG, has approved around 90,700 applications coming from homeowners in this year's first round of the rebate scheme for rooftop PV and storage. This number also includes applications left over from the previous year that were resubmitted and is related to PV systems not exceeding 20 kW in size.

Furthermore, the ministry approved another 9,300 applications relating to PV installations with capacities ranging from 20 kW to 1 MW. In addition, there were another 33,000 applications for battery storage systems that were accepted.

The first found of the scheme has a budget of €323 million ($353.9 million). Overall, this year's budget amounts to €600 million.

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“It's really good news that so many people are contributing to this. More than 100,000 applications are an absolute record,” Energy Minister Leonore Gewessler said at a press conference on Thursday. “But it also poses a challenge. Now is the time to push for more development in a reasonable way. Other countries have had good experiences with the abolition of VAT. We should discuss that seriously,” the minister continued.

Austria reached 4.2 GW cumulative PV capacity at the end of December. Last year, it deployed around 1.4 GW of solar, most of which thanks to the support provided by the rebate scheme.

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