Skip to main content Skip to main navigation Skip to site search

Topic of the week (Part 5): Solar and EVs go hand in hand

From now on, we will for an entire week devote one article per day to a specific topic and how it relates to solar technologies. To start us off, we have decided to delve deeper into current developments in electric mobility:

The German photovoltaics market has continued to grow significantly in 2019. The number of newly installed PV systems on one- and two-family homes in Germany has already increased by 15 per cent in the first half of the year. For 2019, the Bonn-based market and economic research institute EuPD Research has predicted a growth of the residential rooftop segment by 18 per cent.

With electricity costs set to increase further, solutions allowing self-consumption become more and more attractive, and the results of the new EndcustomerMonitor 9.0 by EuPD Research confirm this. It shows that the majority of the survey participants mostly use their self-generated PV electricity and only feed small amounts of electricity into the grid. Besides covering the electricity demand in one’s own household, more and more PV system owners use the green electricity from their own roof to charge their EV.

Buyer’s premiums less interesting

This logical correlation between inexpensive solar electricity and electric mobility becomes particularly apparent when it comes to the purchase of an electric car. As the EndcustomerMonitor 9.0 shows, being able to charge from an already existing solar PV system is the main reason to purchase an electric car. Environmental issues or sustainability are also highly relevant for residential end customers. Incentives or funding schemes, such as tax exemptions or buyer’s premium for electric cars, are less interesting.

"Nowadays, solar electricity from one’s own roof is by far the cheapest way to charge an electric car. A newly installed photovoltaic system on a one- or a two-family home in 2019 shows electricity generation costs of 10 euro cents per kilowatt hour. Hence, two thirds of the regular electricity price can be saved. This saving is expected to increase even more, considering the future increase of electricity prices", as Markus Hoehner, Founder and CEO of EuPD Research commented on the latest research results.

Also surveying post-EEG issues

For the ninth year running, the market and economic researcher EuPD Research has analysed the buying behaviour of PV owners and planners as well as the latest trends in its annual survey EndcustomerMonitor. Traditional topics such as brand awareness, selection and recommendation of PV modules, inverters as well as battery storage systems were also part of the study. Another research focus is on post-EEG issues. The survey is completed; the final report and analysis of the results will be available shortly. (mfo)

This concludes our first topic of the week: Here you can find Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4.

Tags