With over more than half of the global photovoltaic cells produced last year
, Germany has the largest solar industry. The biggest photovoltaic power station on the planet is in Bavaria which contains over 50,000 modules. But solar power in Germany still only makes up 1% of their total energy output.
Utility companies are required to buy back energy generated by the sun at several times market value using the feed-in tariff initiative. The long term aim of this is that energy providers would gradually reduce what they charge for renewable energy. Which should lead to a point when solar panels can compete on the same level as fossil fuels.
As there has been a small increase in electricity bills in Germany to fund the solar industry this could encourage consumers to use less power and produce fewer emissions. The feed-in tariff system has already been copied in China and Spain, with Britain implementing theirs early next year. But nearly 10 billion in funds has been raised from German tax payers to boost their solar credentials.
Last year Germany installed four times as many solar panels as originally expected, the 3,000MW of equipment cost consumers greatly. As Germany gets a smaller amount of sunlight than a lot of countries this is a massive amount for a technology which has not yet been fully realised.
China are currently producing solar equipment for much less than Germany which is greatly effecting their industry even though they are the market leader. This could go some way to explaining why their 17 nuclear power stations are now being kept open. But the utility company E.On have still been getting almost 75,000 new solar customers a year. When we consider that one of the biggest problems facing humanity today is that of a potential environmental disaster, however, encouraging more people to install solar panels is likely to be seen as a positive move.