BERLIN - For months, Philip Matthias tried to convince his father to install solar panels on their company's roof in the eastern German state of Thuringia, aiming to cut electricity costs and carbon emissions at the metal products factory.
Encouraged by a feed-in tariff providing a guaranteed price to renewable energy producers selling their power, as well as reduced solar panel costs, German companies are increasingly turning to solar to get around high energy costs. "As electricity prices in Germany show no signs of decreasing as previously anticipated, companies are increasingly recognising the economic viability of installing solar panels," said Marie-Theres Husken, an energy expert for the BVMW association for small- and medium-sized businesses.
"The demand was not as instant... but the growth is going to be very sustainable," Melchior Schulze Brock, CEO of commercial and industrial solar startup Enviria. State feed-in subsidies for large scale rooftop photovoltaic projects, introduced in 2021 and which are selected via tender, have also boosted the trend.
Sunrock, which won an order from Mercedes Benz in May to build a 23-megawatt solar project on the carmaker's factory roofs, sees Germany as its core market for the coming year.If you're able to spot the black bear in the Yellowstone National Park image you're either lucky or have a keen eye.When a fire chief in rural Nova Scotia came across a post about a fire department in rural Saskatchewan losing everything in a fire, he knew his department had to do something.