As of: March 14, 2024, 11:22 a.m
By: Lars-Eric Nievelstein
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The German solar industry is under severe pressure.
Large manufacturers are demanding quick help from politicians.
Several solar start-ups are taking to the barricades against the so-called resilience bonuses.
Berlin - “The proposal would prevent innovation and cause the EU internal market to fragment.” Philipp Schröder, CEO of the energy company 1KOMMA5°, criticized the possible resilience bonus that manufacturers like Meyer Burger have been asking for for weeks.
These bonuses are actually controversial within the solar industry;
Camps have emerged that each prefer different types of political influence.
Schröder revealed to
Ippen.Media
where he sees the problems.
Share of Chinese added value in photovoltaic production |
80 percent (worldwide) |
|---|---|
Minimum requirement for European value creation in photovoltaics for funding through the resilience bonus |
50 percent (suggestion Fraunhofer ISE) |
Annual increase in solar energy in Germany |
14.1 gigawatts (vbw) |
Long-term goal of annual solar energy expansion |
20.0 gigawatts |
The German solar industry is still under pressure
The background is well known: Chinese manufacturers sell such quantities of solar modules, and at such low prices, that traditional German producers can no longer keep up with the price war.
The Chinese share of global photovoltaic production is around 80 percent.
Because this pressure increased to an unprecedented extent in 2023, several large manufacturers, including Heckert Solar and Solarwatt, decided to reduce production.
Meyer Burger even considered closing the factory and threatened to move to the USA.
Installation of a solar system on a private house roof, Munich.
The German solar industry is under severe pressure.
Several solar start-ups are taking to the barricades against the so-called resilience bonuses.
© IMAGO / Wolfgang Maria Weber
Now some solar companies are seeking salvation in political influence.
So-called resilience bonuses are intended to reward customers who buy European-made solar modules.
Several companies had distanced themselves from it, including Enpal, 1KOMMA5°, Energiekonzepte Deutschland (EKD) and Zolar.
They warned of greater pressure on the small plant segment and of an unwelcome monopoly formation on the German market.
Instead, the state would have to focus on resilience tenders or support them with targeted, direct investments in order to strengthen the competitiveness of German industry.
Divided opinions – resilience bonuses or rather tenders?
Such tenders are already anchored at European level in the Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA).
This stipulates that technology from the EU should be used in 30 percent of the tender volumes in the photovoltaics sector.
Basically, these are auctions in which those companies whose modules have a higher proportion of European parts or are built within Europe do better.
The bonuses are also intended to promote local products: customers who buy components with “lower added value”, i.e. with a higher proportion of European parts or European production, should receive feed-in tariffs.
Until details of the mechanism of the bonus were published, this seemed to be a possible solution for 1KOMMA5°, after all, the company itself produces modules with German polysilicon and has them assembled in China.
Our own module production in Germany is being planned.
“Industrial policy nonsense” – 1KOMMA5° boss criticizes resilience bonuses
However, it didn't stop there.
The bonus received various updates “behind closed doors”.
In February, a version was available in which consumers would only benefit to the maximum from the resilience bonus if they also purchased a European inverter (a device that converts the direct current produced by the solar module on the roof into usable alternating current).
What's curious is that there were no specifications regarding depth of value creation for this device, so it could also consist of Chinese components and still receive full funding.
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Schröder emphasized that 1KOMMA5° buys technically superior and therefore expensive inverters in the USA and Israel.
This sounds counterintuitive at first - companies that actively decide against Chinese parts receive disadvantages in a resilience bonus, which is fundamentally intended to protect their industry from Chinese companies.
“Nobody could explain that to us, and nobody wanted to explain it to us,” commented Schröder.
In their current design, resilience bonuses are “also geostrategic and industrial policy nonsense.”
New entrants to the market would find it difficult to achieve a corresponding depth of added value straight away.
Attempts by his company to at least reward growth measures such as factory construction or investment certificates through the bonuses went unheard.
Adjustments to the resilience bonus
Until Fraunhofer ISE proposed it in February, there was “no information” about what the bonus should look like.
The politicians probably didn't have any corresponding details either.
The new proposal was no longer just about electricity fed in, which should receive subsidies, but about all electricity produced.
“With this study, Fraunhofer ISE presented the BMWK with a staggered roadmap for introducing European products into the market through resilience bonuses and suggested a concrete incremental design,” the institute said.
For this purpose, Fraunhofer ISE recommended a minimum requirement of 50 percent European added value, which should work, for example, through the inverter or the module.
“This approach is consistent with the European Council proposal on the NZIA,” it added.
However, the NZIA does not talk about resilience bonuses, but rather about the “application of resilience criteria in procurement procedures and auctions”.
“The crucial point is that the funding effect is greatly increased by this production clause and the inverters,” criticized Schröder, drawing a comparison to tomato cultivation.
In this scenario, a farmer who sells tomatoes would also receive extra compensation if he eats them himself.
The 1KOMMA5° boss thinks: “That would simply be excessive funding.” Initially, neither politicians nor the media discussed this, while interest representatives developed the proposal for the resilience bonus independently.
Market consolidation in the solar industry?
The German solar industry is now at a turning point.
“We do not criticize the goal of strengthening the German solar industry,” Schröder made clear.
But the methodology is wrong.
“If you want to promote the industry in the long term, then you have to start elsewhere and, if necessary, accept that the market may consolidate for a short time.
But the instrument that is being built and discussed here only helps individuals in the short term and is an absolute farce.”
However, there is a lack of understanding at the Federal Solar Industry Association.
“The start-up’s criticism of how measures for more diversification and resilience in the form we recommend should promote the formation of a monopoly is in no way understandable,” said the association in response to a request from
Ippen.Media
.
The recommendations for the introduction of a resilience component in the EEG were designed in such a way that “unwanted market distortions or wait-and-see effects” in the photovoltaics market were avoided.
This creates a win-win situation for manufacturers, retailers and crafts alike.
It's about a temporary compensation for disadvantages.
What's next?
The Solar Package I is currently in the starting blocks, which, among other things, is intended to reduce bureaucracy.
At a Federal Council meeting on February 2nd, it was also said that the resilience tenders should at least be tested.
Although a decision was announced in the second half of February, production at Meyer Burger is still ongoing in Freiberg.
1KOMMA5° is here ready to take over the work.
The last word in politics has not yet been spoken.