What's next for German PV industry?
Germany's solar industry has been given a boost after the government said it would scale back the feed-in tariff for solar electricity by only 9-10 percent each year until 2011 much less than the 30 percent scale-back that some industry experts had predicted. (...) According to the German solar magazine Photon, solar power could end up costing Germans €77 billion in higher tariffs by 2010 assuming that solar electricity generates 2 percent of the country's total electricity by then, and some critics have said the costs are not in relation to the performance. (...) In 1999, the extra costs to consumers were €19 million; in 2005, €506 million; and in 2008, the cost is expected to €1 billion. The costs could grow even higher in the coming decade because households with solar panels are guaranteed a fixed income for 20 years for surplus electricity sold to the national grid. (...) According to the Rheinisch Westfälischen Instituts für Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI), every job created in the solar industry costs €128,900 in subsidies and every ton less of carbon emissions costs €900, indicating that solar electricity might be the least efficient and most expensive way of tackling climate change.