(SeeNews) – Nov 5, 2012 – The federal government’s target to increase solar output by 2.5 GW to 3.5 GW annually is insufficient, German Solar Industry Association (BSW-Solar) managing director Carsten Koernig said in an interview with Berliner Zeitung on Friday.
The above-mentioned capacity increase is not enough to match the ambitions to double solar power’s proportion in Germany’s energy supply to the target of at least 10% by 2020, he said.
Though Koernig welcomed the unity of the states and Berlin about the country's energy transition, he noted that the federal government is not ambitious enough in the matter.
According to BSW-Solar’s estimations, about 30,000 solar industry jobs were cut in the past months in Germany. Therefore, Koernig urged the facilitation of access to growth and venture capital for German PV companies.
In addition, while elsewhere the sector is backed by a forward-looking industrial policy, by changing Renewable Energy Sources Act four times in just three years, the federal government has made SME’s access to capital even more difficult, he added.
Nevertheless, Koernig also seemed to be optimistic in some aspects and said that he hopes that many companies would emerge from the consolidation phase stronger.
As the price of photovoltaics has fallen dramatically recently, the technology is not more expensive than offshore wind energy and is very popular among the public, he added.
Regarding global development of the solar industry, Koernig said that though it is currently experiencing a difficult time as the production capacity had grown faster than demand, photovoltaics has already become globally unstoppable.
Solar power will compete in more and more regions and the number of global markets would rise fast, Koenig forecast.
According to him, the aim of the German photovoltaic companies has to be to increase their foreign sales further in this growing global market. With German mechanical and plant engineers already being world leaders, the success of the module makers depends on their innovativeness.
Koernig concluded that he remains convinced that the German commitment to solar technology will pay off.
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