Solar system - a sensible addition to heating

Property owners need to think about heating. Oil and gas will soon be eliminated as energy sources or become extremely expensive. What remains? A solar system on the roof complements the existing or new system, is sustainable and good for your wallet.

The amendment to the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) also contains important innovations for homeowners. In future, anyone who wants to install a photovoltaic or solar system on their roof will be able to choose between two different tariffs for the solar electricity that is fed into the grid. In future, those who feed all of the solar electricity they generate into the grid will receive twice as much as they do today.

However, a solar system on the roof can already be worthwhile. Finanztest calculations show: A return of three to four percent is possible in the long term. At present, this result cannot be achieved by feeding the system into the grid alone. Not even cost-covering operation is possible in this way. On the other hand, self-consumption in one's own household for washing, cooking or charging an electric car is becoming more and more attractive. This is all the more true since energy prices literally exploded at the beginning of the year. Whether a solar system is worthwhile depends on the price of the system, the electricity yield, the proportion of electricity consumed by the household and the development of electricity prices.

"Anyone planning a system should keep an eye on the planned reform of the Renewable Energy Sources Act," advises Stiftung Warentest. Plant operators who feed all the electricity they generate into the grid will receive up to 13.4 cents per kilowatt hour in future. That is about twice as much as before. For systems with own consumption, on the other hand, things are to remain the same, with owners receiving only up to 6.53 cents per kilowatt hour.

To make better use of solar power for self-consumption, electricity storage systems are increasingly being used to store solar power that is not needed during the day and to release it in the evening when it is needed. The self-consumption share can thus be increased to 50 percent and more. For a long time, storage systems were so expensive that they were hardly worth buying. In the meantime, prices have dropped significantly, according to Stiftung Warentest.

(Photo: © Ulrike Leone, Pixabay)