July 15 (Renewables Now) – The boom in Switzerland’s solar market is expected to continue in 2022 with the forecast record deployment of 850 MW-900 MW in capacity as a result of brisk demand driven by high electricity prices, an increasing number of electric vehicles and the need for a secure energy supply.
The installation of new solar photovoltaic (PV) systems already hit a record high last year, rising 43% to 683 MW, the solar energy association Swissolar said on Thursday.
Solar installations on single-family homes accounted for 220 MW of the total new capacity while solar plants built on behalf of industrial and commercial businesses added 263 MW.
Solar systems with an individual capacity in the range of 100 kW to 1,000 kW made up the largest chunk, or 258 MW, of the newly deployed capacity.
At the end of the year, Switzerland had 3.65 GW of solar plants in operation which covers nearly 6% of the country’s electricity consumption. Solar energy generated about 2,842 GWh of power last year which is enough to meet the consumption of 900,000 four-person households.
Along with solar systems, demand for battery storage is also growing with the number of storage systems surging 2.5 times in 2021 as compared with the prior year. About one-third of the new solar installations on single-family houses last year were combined with a battery. The overall installed storage capacity in Switzerland totalled 157,000 kWh at the end of last year which is enough to supply 15,000 households with electricity for one day.
However, to exit fossil fuels and nuclear power, Switzerland needs about 13 times more solar power than it currently has, according to Swissolar. In 2050, solar energy should produce 45 TWh of electricity per year and this could be reached if the annual new installations reach 2,000 MW and about 40% of the existing roof areas in the Alpine country are equipped with solar panels.
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