By Evolution Solar Sunshine Coast

Germany has set a new solar power installation record with 7.6GWs of new solar systems installed and connected to the electricity grid in 2012.

Like with many countries at the moment, solar power incentives are starting to fall. Unlike Australia, Germany’s feed-in tariffs have been decreasing on a monthly basis since November 2012. After a capacity increase of 330.10MW in December, there will be another feed-in tariff decrease of 2.2% over February, March and April.

The effect of governments slashing solar subsidies around the world has been surprising. PV Magazine (LINK) has aptly reported, “It is often overlooked that politics, via its constant attacks on solar subsidies, have contributed to the strong expansion of photovoltaics in Germany. Indeed, contrary to the objective of limiting expansion, the federal government has repeatedly triggered an artificial increase in demand for photovoltaic systems.”

Previously, Germany’s average annual solar power installations rate was between 2.5GWs and 3.5GWs. This means that 2012 installations almost trebled the installations of some of its previous years therefore solidifying it as the world’s solar giant.

As previous reported Germany is seeing its lowest demand for electricity ever which is forcing utility companies to lower prices in order to be more competitive. (Click here to read the full article from earlier this year).

Fossil fuel use in Germany remains largely unchanged in 2012 from 2010. However nuclear is on the decline and being replaced by renewables as planned.

Germany is now said to encourage solar power storage systems from April 2013. These are systems that require a bank of batteries to be able to store power and may or may not be connected to the electricity grid. Local media has reported that around €2000 of funding is expected to come off the cost of each system installed.

“Solar power storage will relieve the grid by decoupling the supply of energy into the grid at the time of generation. Storage also actively contributes towards the maintenance of uniform voltage and frequency of the grid and thereby takes over important jobs for grid management,” explained Prof. Dr. Bernd Engel in PV Magazine, grid expert at the Technical University Braunschweig.

There are several advantages to solar power storage systems in Germany. They will help support the grid in peak demand times as well as effectively increasing the grid capacity without the need for grid expansion. PV Magazine reported that the grid peak demand could be reduced by 40% while the storage systems could help expand capacity by 66%.

Once again in looks like Germany will be in the forefront of the world’s push to be come 100% renewable.