Even more reasons to be delighted with sunshine
Slightly more than one year ago, the Solar Energy for Multi – Family Houses in Lithuania (SOL) project concluded with a highly acclaimed conference in Lithuanian Parliament. Analyses and findings from the project are very promising and their presentation inspired a highly constructive and forward-looking exchange on how to put potential into practice. Through the project, the small but ambitious country in North-Eastern Europe learned that even though local winters are long and summers are comparatively short, there is still sufficient sunshine to contribute to moving towards energy independence again after the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant had been closed in 2009.
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The potential for solar energy in Lithuania was reflected in the project report drafted and published by the SOL consortium and their partners from Steinbeis Innovationszentrum energie+, Protech and The Alliance of Lithuanian Consumers Organisations. The team analysed two multi-family buildings in Lithuania, simulating the production of energy by means of photovoltaic and calculating energy demand and energy costs with the use of photovoltaics as well as without. The profitability analysis showed that it is economically beneficial to install photovoltaics. However, comparatively low but instable energy prices and varying conditions for net metering are still keeping private owners in multi-family buildings to invest into this technology.
The SOL project analysed technical, social and legal conditions in Lithuania in order to come up with recommendations for increasingly introducing and implementing renewable energy technologies in the country. These recommendations were presented at just the right moment, as the government had meanwhile also started working on new funding programmes for solar and renewable energy. Today, the SOL partners are glad to see that a new funding programme was actually released which provides state fundings of up to 30 per cent for installing and applying renewable technologies in a multi-family building. We hope this is going to increase both, the number of prosumers in multi-family buildings and the amount of solar energy produced by them significantly.
SOL Solar Energy for Multi-Family Buildings in Lithuania