People desperate for electricity bills are falling for a new myth, unaware that they are entering a game that has been played here before. It’s just that the second round is more subtle in taking money out of taxpayers’ pockets, and it will also be more expensive as the path to other people’s pockets opens up to the general public.
It is far from just a direct 200k subsidy to install photovoltaic panels on your roof, but what this will cause in the entire network and how these induced costs will be spread among consumers.
Who will pay for it
First of all, let’s explain that the real cost of solar electricity is not just the cost of investment and then very cheap operation. Since 2018, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has been using an indicator to compare energy prices, which also includes the prices of energy storage and the provision of alternative sources. Of course, these items are higher, the higher the share of renewable sources with uncontrollable production in the network.
The result of the prepared studies is that after reaching a ten percent share of the total electricity production, these costs rise steeply. And someone has to pay them. Of course, the cost is also influenced by whether there are fewer large solar parks operating in the system, or hundreds of thousands of roofs, whose production is switched off and on practically simultaneously due to the size of our territory.
Of course, someone has to pay the real, real costs of solar energy, and the current subsidies are certainly not enough. This is mostly done in the form of distribution fees included in the price of all electricity or gas.
No wonder the boom
However, it creates a nice redistribution effect for rooftop solar systems. Of course, their owners do not pay any distribution fees for the consumption of electricity from their solar panels, and when they need it, they take electricity from the grid in a much smaller amount than those who do not have a solar power plant. And therefore they will pay much less on the distribution fee. In the final, they collect the profit from their own production of electricity, possibly also from its sale, and socialize the costs.
A rather simple conclusion can be drawn from this. Anyone who doesn’t buy solar panels is robbing his own family. Therefore, one cannot be surprised at the current boom, when energy companies are unable to connect new projects to the grid, because it is not sized for it, and someone other than the solar company will have to pay for the huge investment.
However, if it succeeds, the lucky person has to reckon with the fact that, from time to time, a stone will fly onto the roof from behind the fence, thrown by someone who does not have a roof or does not have an initial investment, and quite rightly feels tunneled by the state-supported gangs of paws.
It is a very similar case to providing subsidies from taxpayers’ pockets to companies and individuals to buy electric cars. Those who do not have them, due to the significantly higher price, subsidize their happier fellow citizens with considerable sums. If the supporters of this long-term policy, practiced everywhere in Europe, are surprised by the sharp and irreconcilable division of society, it is a bit of a joke.
