Q Cells provide housing association project in Germany
In Sachsen-Anhalt, a housing association has installed a PV system with Q CELLS solar modules on the roofs of their apartment buildings, providing tenants with low-cost electricity. Connected since late April, the PV system on the buildings of the Wolfen GmbH housing and building association has a total capacity of over 160 kWp.
Tenants with the housing association are able to use the solar power produced on their roof at very attractive terms, immediately lowering their electricity costs. The power system consists of three solar plants. All the basic services were provided by local partners of the solar industry in Sachsen-Anhalt.
The PV system was developed and built by Engynious Clean Power GmbH, located in Muldestausee in Germany.
"With this PV project, we're demonstrating that new business models and quality work can still function successfully in Germany," says Dr. Ted Scheidegger, Chairman at the Engynious Group. Helionat eG from Magdeburg, a town in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany, are committing themselves as an investor in the solar project. Residents are able to share in the power plant in Bitterfeld-Wolfen within an energy cooperative.
"Renewable energy by the people for the people is just the sort of thing we stand for, and here is a prime example of that", says Helionat chairman Jörg Dahlke.
The solar modules were developed and produced by Hanwha Q CELLS, the largest European photovoltaics provider headquartered in Thalheim, Germany.
"We're very pleased that our products, 'engineered and made in Thalheim', are being used locally and for the benefit of our region. What's more, it's being done as part of a pathbreaking new business model for the solar industry in Germany," says Ralf Wirth, Key Account Director for German-speaking countries at Hanwha Q CELLS.
"This partnership is one more opportunity for us to disprove the very idea that renewable energy and low-cost utilities don't go together. The power plant shows that the solar industry keeps the social factor in mind and uses its business models to contribute to fairer distribution of the costs of the energy revolution," says Dr. Andreas von Zitzewitz, COO at Hanwha Q CELLS and member of the board of directors at the German Solar Industry Association. "The federal government picked the wrong strategy for lowering electricity costs. But, with this model, the solar industry is directly contributing to making electricity affordable for private households."
For years and quite justifiably, politics have been demanding subsidy-independent business models from the solar industry. With its Renewable Energies Act (EEG) and the introduction of a sort of "sun tax", the Cabinet has placed obstacles in the way of achieving this goal, as well as self-sustaining business models, such as tenants' electricity supply from PV systems. Self-consumption of solar power using devices with a capacity of over 10 kWp is to become subject to a fee as of August 2014.
"The government is standing in its own way. Instead of preventing an additional rise in the cost of electricity, what was intended as a way to curb electricity costs is actually becoming a cost-driver," says von Zitzewitz. "Self-sustaining business models, which reduce the costs of the energy revolution, will then soon become a thing of the past before they've even really taken off. This is why we're supporting the opposition to these plans which is currently developing in the Bundesrat."
The direct supply of tenants with environmentally-friendly solar power from the roof of the landlord is to be taxed at 100 percent of the cost contribution (approx. 6.2 cents/kWh). Opposition is developing in the Bundesrat against these plans by the federal government. The Chamber of States is demanding that solar power for private and tenant supply should, in future, be taxed at a significantly lower rate than that intended by the federal government.
