Apartment buildings emerge from the PV shadow

05.03.2025

Source: E & M powernews

Tenement buildings are overshadowed by the German solar boom. This will change with a new operator concept from the Solar Package I of 2024, according to a landlords' association and BSW Solar.

The solar industry and landlords see a new operator concept and a social consensus for PV as two drivers for catching up with apartment buildings and involving tenants in the energy transition. Together with the German Solar Industry Association (BSW Solar), Ingeborg Esser, Managing Director of the Federal Association of the German Housing and Real Estate Industry (GdW), called the "community building supply" a "real change" in front of the press on March 4: "We strongly support the concept."

The traffic light introduced the operator concept in April 2024 in Solar Package I. In Germany, the "community building supply" has since stood alongside the older "tenant electricity model", which, according to Esser, "has not really been able to gain a foothold in our country because the regulation is excessive".

Photovoltaics continued to boom in almost all segments in Germany in 2024. Exceptions were single-family homes, where the expansion cooled off compared to 2023 (we reported), and multi-family homes, which according to BSW Solar estimates account for only 0.5% of installed PV capacity in Germany, namely 500 MW.

Only 50 MW was marketed as tenant electricity at the end of 2023. However, the technical PV potential of apartment buildings is 75,000 MW, according to Agora Energiewende and Greenventory 2023 (we reported). At the end of last year, 38,000 MW were installed on single-family homes and 29,000 MW on commercial roofs.

Advantages compared to tenant electricity

Why is community building supply a game changer? The landlord can limit himself to the PV electricity from the roof. The tenants then obtain their remaining requirements from the grid from a supplier. With the tenant electricity model, on the other hand, the landlord must supply the entire demand. They then become the electricity supplier. This means higher requirements for invoices, such as electricity labeling, and the obligation to offer several payment methods.

The VAT exemption for PV systems in this power class is also a "real push" for the landlord lobbyist Esser, which will be followed by a further boost with the implementation of the EU Buildings Directive. This will make PV mandatory from 2030.

According to BSW solar expert Benedikt Fischer, the first community building supply projects have already been implemented and the first service providers have specialized in this area. For municipal utilities, GdW's Ms. Esser had rather bad news here: "Will it always be implemented by the local supplier?" she asked rhetorically. She sees the supplier "more likely" to continue with the tenant electricity model. According to Benedikt Fischer from BSW Solar, however, it is still worth comparing the different operator concepts. He presented a new guideline from BSW Solar and the GdW, which is intended to make the decision easier for landlords and homeowners' associations (WEG).

According to Fischer, tenants can hope for solar electricity prices "several cents" below those of gray grid electricity. The expectations are huge: in an earlier survey conducted by Yougov on behalf of BSW Solar, 53 percent of tenants surveyed preferred PV among a selection of sustainability measures - by far the highest percentage (we reported).

Among the 360 GdW landlords currently surveyed, there is just as much sunshine when it comes to community building supply. Only 16 percent wanted the sun to continue to shine uselessly on their roofs.

A real obstacle, especially for small apartment buildings, could be the expensive installation of modern metering equipment (mME) for each participating tenant, because consumption has to be measured every quarter of an hour. And theoretically, the preliminary ruling of the European Court of Justice on the "customer installation" could also turn the landlord into the network operator as soon as the Federal Court of Justice has implemented it in its main ruling. Like other associations before her (we reported), GdW's Ms. Esser demanded that the Bundestag then redefine the "customer installation" in a legally secure manner. At the very least, there must be protection for existing installations, otherwise such PV operator models would "suffer a setback".

BSW Solar CEO Körnig gave the all-clear for the still pending approval of the solar package I by the EU under state aid law: it does not affect the community building supply.

The "Guide to the community building supply" can be requested from the BSW Solar website.

Author: Georg Eble