German solar juggernaut rolls on despite tariff cuts

[kristopher]

1. More on study quoted in the OP

They note a problem with the structure of the renewable incentive program regarding treatment of industrial users vs homeowners:

"At the present time, the price-reduction effect primarily benefits wholesalers and large-scale power users who obtain their power on the spot market. Thus, current solar policies allow lucrative double dipping on the part of power-intensive industries. Firstly, they benefit from lower purchase prices on the power market, and secondly they gain significant exemption from EEG Apportionment payments (apportionment payments set down by the Renewable Energy Sources Act).

However, household consumers do not benefit from the price-reduction effects. In fact, the opposite is true: The calculation methodology for the EEG Apportionment actually results in higher prices for private consumers because they have to cover the differential costs between cheap, peak demand power and guaranteed feed-in remuneration. If the price-reduction effect of photovoltaics was factored into EEG Apportionment payments, it would result in a price reduction of 0.15 cents per kilowatt-hour for household consumers."

http://www.solarwirtschaft.de/en/media/single-view/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=14492&cHash=6caa4a57ebf519654a3a1c8151c31d62