Global PV markets

The Greek government has announced changes to its photovoltaic subsidies. It has also highlighted the important role the technology plays in Greece.

Switzerland’s Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC) has announced that photovoltaic feed-in tariffs (FITs) will decrease by a total of 18 percent.

The controversy surrounding the U.S.-China trade debate looks set to continue well into 2012. Having already twice delayed the deadline for its preliminary decision on Chinese solar import duties into the U.S., the Department of Commerce has now introduced a “critical-circumstances” ruling, meaning that retroactive duties could be applied.

Under its latest plans to electrify rural areas of developing countries, NGO FRES Netherlands, along with its Mali-based subsidiary, Yeelen Kura, will install six off-grid photovoltaic plants in the country in 2012, thus adding to the two systems it helped erect there in 2011.

A group of 20 U.S. solar industry stakeholders have submitted a letter to Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, in which they lay out their recommendations for creating a “smart from the start” public land solar energy program. They also state that it “must” be complete by the end of fiscal year 2012.

According to the latest European PV Markets Quarterly report from NPD Solarbuzz, the first quarter (Q1) of 2012 is expected to see a 10 percent rise in European photovoltaics demand. However, it says that due to the amount of photovoltaics added in Q4 2011, incentive policy changes are being accelerated.

In a surprise move, the Spanish Council of ministers has implemented a temporary suspension of the renewable energy feed-in-tariffs (FIT) for new installations in Spain.

Following the official announcement this week that Italy’s energy regulator, GSE, will not open a register for large-scale photovoltaic plants in the second half of 2012, the government has now said it wants to apply a retroactive measure to Article 65 of Law Decree n. 1/2012 (“Decreto Monti”) which, if passed into law, will affect photovoltaic installations on agricultural land.

Photovoltaics subsidies are a highly contentious subject within the German Federal Government. Federal Minister of Economics Philipp Rösler has drawn up his own paper, which might have led to a compromise with the Ministry of the Environment. Yet at Wednesday’s meeting it was rejected.

According to reports from parties involved in the negotiations, no conclusive result was reached at a meeting of Germany’s ruling coalition’s energy task force yesterday. Still, it seems likely that there will be rapid changes to the solar subsidies.