The number of new installations and the year-on-year increase in August shown in the graph are both lower than in July, probably due to the rare global heat and drought in August this year which caused a reduction in starts. The increase in the first half of the year was much lower than the increase from January to August, probably because of the outbreak of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the end of February, investment in PV has not yet affected the first half of the year on a large scale, but has accelerated significantly from July onwards.

As we enter the fourth quarter, temperatures have dropped significantly, the cold weather crisis testing the Nordic countries, including Germany, is accelerating, and with no de-escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and Russian gas supplies still being stubbornly resisted or restricted, there is reason to believe that European countries will accelerate the deployment of PV installations.

In order to prevent its own population from shivering in the cold, the German government last month approved in its annual tax bill for 2022 an exemption from income tax and corresponding VAT for rooftop PV that meets the conditions, continuing to respond to the growing energy crisis by implementing policies to support small-scale distributed PV. New PV installations in Germany are expected to exceed 8GW this year.