Backed by 'more attractive tariffs and attractive subsidy programs' over the last 5 years, Luxembourg grew its total installed solar energy capacity at the end of 2022 to 317 MW, including 40 MW deployed last year.
Calling it a 'solar boom', the government says it has been supporting the industry with varied calls for tenders and facilitation measures (see Luxembourg's 2nd Call For Solar For Businesses).
These include subsidies for self-consumption solar PV installations increased to 62.5% since January 1, 2023. The government has also reduced value added tax (VAT) on new solar PV installations since the beginning of this year to 3%. It has also raised the taxable income threshold for PV installations to 30 kW.
"To this is added the production of other renewable energy sources on national territory, which covers 100% of household consumption in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg," stated the ministry. "The trend for the future is also promising: in mid-2023, commissionings are already at the level of 2022 for the full year.
The country's Energy Minister Claude Turmes recently shared the government's plans to bring in further measures to boost solar PV, including doing away with the need to install 2nd meter for systems with up to 30 kW installed capacity if it is being used for self-consumption, starting from September 2023.
Plug-and-play systems on balconies can also be commissioned without any administrative requirements to meet.
Turmes shared the network operators are in the process to digitize their networks to further ease connection requests and appointments.
Under its National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP), Luxembourg targets to increase the share of renewable energies in the final energy consumption to 35% to 37% by 2030. Agrivoltaics is one of the major areas of focus under the plan to promote agricultural production along with solar PV.
According to the International Renewable Energy Agency, Luxembourg added 90 MW new solar PV in 2021 and that its total installed capacity at the end of 2022 was 319 MW.
During Interslar Munich in June, in a presentation on solar in Europe based on its Global Solar Market Outlook 2023, SolarPower Europe showed a solar installations ranking of the top 10 European countries on a Watt per Capita basis end of 2022 – and in this list Luxembourg was ranked 9th with 491 W/capita, which was less than half the capacity of the Netherlands with 1,029 W/capita.