Country Focus: Portugal
Interview with APESF, the Portuguese Solar Photovoltaic Association
According to APESF what are the main bottlenecks to develop PV in Portugal?
The Microgeneration Law (Decree 363/2007) is now in its second year and had a great impact on raising new PV companies of national and international origins. From 20 companies before 2008 the amount increased up to 500.
Registrations for each installation are made online, mostly made by the installer company. The random access to get a registration is a “once-in-every-two-months” lottery and more and more medium and small companies are unable to survive, due to the impossibility of registering their clients. The bottleneck is due to administrative regularisations, not due to the decree itself.
The lucky one, who gets installing permission, benefits from one of the highest FiTs (0,61€/kWh), but only for the following 5 years. After 5 years the FiT will be defined each year on 1 January, with another 10 years variable FiT. Every 10 MW registered the FiT for new installed systems declines by 5%. This leads to a probable decrease of interest in future installations and to demotivation for future investments.
Are you happy with the single microgeneration scheme or should the FiT not be opened to larger systems?
The actual legislation has a bonafide FiT limited to a maximum of 3,68 kW. It should at least be open to install 20 kW. Larger systems will mostly benefit big international companies, but should have a share of a bonafide FiT, if building integrated.
What is your opinion about the obligation to combine Solar thermal systems to PV systems?
The combination of energy generation and energy saving is well accepted. The obligation to have at least 2m2 thermal collector to receive the bonafide FiT for PV generators should not be applied in all cases and have specified exceptions (e.g. for shops without warm water installations). The access and subsidy formalities are both very complicated and difficult to realise for small and medium companies. Subsidies for thermal systems are limited to a maximum of 300 litres and only accessible through a very non-transparent web-page owned by several credit institutes, which establishes contact between installer and client.
APESF, the Portuguese Association of Companies in the photovoltaic sector is a newly non profit founded entity. Its main objective is the promotion and development of photovoltaic energy market in Portugal in order to follow the rapid development that characterizes this industry worldwide.
For more information: www.apesf.pt
