High Demand for Solar Panels

Demand for solar panels has increased significantly in the past two or three weeks, the president of the Hungarian Solar Panel Association, Ernő Kiss told the state news agency MTI on Thursday.

The President said that in 2021, their member companies and other businesses installed solar systems and solar power plants in 35,000 households in Hungary. This year, however, the association has received around 60,000 inquiries in the last few weeks alone – after the government’s announcement of phasing out capped prices for businesses and partially for households as well.

In addition, even those businesses that have been receiving electricity at market prices for years are also asking for thousands of solar systems. All this is causing a heavy backlog, which is why the association's president is confident that some of the recently announced requests will be carried over to next year. 

At the same time, he said, the biggest obstacle is that the technical economic information on the installation of solar systems issued by energy suppliers has to wait several months, even half a year, because of the backlog of suppliers, as opposed to the 30 days laid down in the legislation.

Ernő Kiss said that if a customer approaches the members of the association to install a solar system, the first step is for the contractor to notify the electricity supplier of his request to install the solar system.

This is necessary because, although the solar system does not require a license, it does require the consent of the electricity supplier. This is the basis for starting the installation, which takes only one day for an average-sized system.

The association's president added that the fact that electricity suppliers have tightened up previous practice for the installation of solar systems with a capacity of more than 2.5 kilowatts was a particular problem. Now, in the vast majority of cases, they require the user to change the location of the electrical connection in his property before submitting an application for a solar system. This could previously be done in a single step.

Under the new regulation, this investment, which alone costs on average 500,000 HUF, will result in a delay of several months in the implementation of the investment. The president of the association considers this to be pointless, as in many cases the application for the installation of a solar system may be rejected after the investment has been made. 

Another major problem is the lack of products, as Russia’s war in Ukraine has led to a huge demand for solar panels and inverters throughout Europe.