German solar systems leasing market heats up

Analysts are predicting that Germany’s biggest utility companies are about to follow the Californian model and build up a business in leasing solar systems as a way of developing their share of the home market for solar power.

Leading utility companies are expected to mount a push into renewable energy in order to halt the slump in their market share and profits. Although Germany has become the world’s biggest solar energy producer, these organisations have failed to make an impression on their local market, according to a report by the Reuters news agency.

The top three utilities E.ON, RWE and EnBW currently own just 0.003% of all German solar capacity, while it is the large numbers of smaller green-energy specialists that have benefited from the state subsidies available to boost wind and solar capacity ahead of Germany’s planned phasing out of nuclear power by 2022. Germany’s installed solar capacity provided over a quarter of its domestic power in the first half of 2014.

Analysts are predicting the big traditional energy suppliers will start to see smart homes and solar leasing as a way to capitalise on their existing customer base, and say that over the next two years these companies will start new business streams, equipping commercial customers such as supermarkets, petrol stations and warehouses with tailor-made roof-top solar panel installations for a monthly fee.

This approach is similar to the model which has been successful in California, where companies including Solar City have provided hundreds of millions of dollars in third-party funding to get solar power off the ground.

So far, only a few players are active in Germany’s nascent solar leasing sector, including PV.A Leasing in Europa, N-ERGIE and RWE. German solar company Conergy, which has teamed up with RWE to offer leasing services, reckons it will take until 2017 before Germany’s solar leasing market takes off.