Association: Own PV beats lower electricity tax

27.08.2025

Source: E & M powernews

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) save more if they install PV on their roofs than if they also benefit from the electricity tax reduction. According to the BSW.

According to the trade association BSW-Solar, small and medium-sized enterprises should not fixate on the reduction in electricity tax, which they will not receive after all. Instead, they would save more energy costs with their own photovoltaic generation than the tax relief they would receive.

In July, the black-red government decided to limit the reduction to the EU minimum level for all consumer groups provided for in the coalition agreement to energy-intensive industry (we reported).

According to calculations by the German Solar Industry Association, SMEs in particular benefit from a combination of three economic circumstances:

• The first circumstance was only added in July: since a corresponding change in the law, commercial system operators can already write off up to 30 percent of the installation costs in the first year of operation of a PV system. When bundled with a conversion of the vehicle fleet to electric, the figure is even up to 50 percent.
• The company's own PV electricity from the commercial roof costs only 5.7 to 12 cents per kWh, and between 7.3 and 16 cents when combined with a battery storage system, while grid electricity for SMEs costs 18 cents.
• After all, SMEs receive EEG remuneration for PV electricity that they do feed into the grid.

BSW Solar Managing Director Carsten Körnig predicts that PV installation on industrial and commercial roofs will continue, even if it has leveled off in the first half of 2025: "For economic reasons alone, more and more companies will use their company roofs to supply themselves with solar power in a cost-effective and predictable manner over the long term."

Between this January and June, 7 percent more solar power was installed on industrial and commercial roofs in Germany than in the first half of 2024. In 2024 as a whole, the increase in installations amounted to 30 percent on an annual basis.

According to the Federal Network Agency's market master data register, 12,000 PV systems have been installed on industrial roofs and 81,000 on agricultural roofs. In purely numerical terms, of course, this is nothing compared to the total number of PV systems in Germany: a good 5.4 million, according to research carried out by this editorial team in the register. However, the crucial point is that, according to the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS), only 19 percent of halls in the commercial and logistics sector are topped with a solar system. The BSW-Solar estimates that far more than 100,000 SMEs generate PV electricity themselves.

Author: Georg Eble