While consumers in Flanders bought almost 50 percent more solar panels in the first 5 months of the year, companies are still lagging behind. This week in ‘The Hard Numbers’ the Flemish PV market.
These are new figures from the Flemish Energy and Climate Agency (VEKA). While consumer installed capacity has grown from 47.76 to 70.66 megawatts, corporate capacity fell by 63 percent in the first 5 months of the year.
748 additional installations
Incidentally, these are preliminary figures, which means that actual growth will be even higher. For example, the figures for installations less than 10 kilowatts for January were previously upgraded from 5.94 to 7.05 megawatts and later 8.16 megawatts. In the new data, that figure has also been increased again, to 8.39 megawatts. Such increases therefore occur on an ongoing basis. For example, since the last update for April, VEKA has registered an additional 748 new installations; good at 3.37 megawatts. The figures for the month of May are therefore also lower than the actual realized capital.
The reason is that new installations have to go through several steps. As a result, in many cases they are only registered by the network operators a few months after commissioning. Data from the most recent quarter are therefore by definition incomplete and according to VEKA an underestimation of reality.
By asset class
The table below shows the newly installed solar panel installations registered by VEKA in 2022. The stated capacities are the capacities of the inverter (alternating current).
|
Active class |
Number of installations |
Power (inverter) |
|
Less than 10 kilowatts |
16,430 |
70.67 megawatts |
|
10 to 40 kilowatts |
15 |
0.33 megawatts |
|
40 to 250 kilowatts |
15 |
1.56 megawatts |
|
250 to 750 kilowatts |
† |
† |
|
Larger than 750 kilowatts |
1 |
16.00 megawatts |
|
Total |
12,849 th most common |
72.60 megawatts |
By province
The distribution of the number of new installations in 2022 per. province is as follows:
|
Province |
Number of installations |
Power (inverter) |
|
Antwerp |
4,026 |
17.91 megawatts |
|
Limburg |
2,202 |
26.23 megawatts |
|
East Flanders |
3,997 |
17.38 megawatts |
|
Flemish Brabant |
2,835 |
12.99 megawatts |
|
West Flanders |
3,401 |
14.06 megawatts |
|
Total |
16,461 |
88.57 megawatts |
The 2 graphs below show the number of new installations at consumers (less than 10 kilowatts) and the inverter power involved for the period January-May in 2021 and 2022.
25 percent more installations
The table below compares the number of new installations in the calendar years 2021 and 2022 and shows that this has increased by 25 percent.
|
System size (number of installations) |
Jan-May 2021 |
Jan-May 2022 |
cultivate |
|
Less than 10 kilowatts |
13,031 |
16,430 |
+ 26 percent |
|
10 to 40 kilowatts |
61 |
15 |
– 75 percent |
|
40 to 250 kilowatts |
336 |
15 |
– 96 percent |
|
250 to 750 kilowatts |
35 |
† |
– 100 percent |
|
Larger than 750 kilowatts |
7 |
1 |
– 86 percent |
|
Total |
13,470 th most common |
16,461 |
+ 22 percent |
The table below shows a comparison between the capacity of the new installations in the calendar years 2021 and 2022 and shows that this has fallen by 21 percent. This is due to the commercial market (red systems larger than 10 kilowatts), which welcomed 63 percent less power in the period January-April compared to the previous calendar year.
|
System size (power in megawatts) |
Jan-May 2021 |
Jan-May 2022 |
cultivate |
|
Less than 10 kilowatts |
47.76 |
70.66 |
+ 48 percent |
|
10 to 40 kilowatts |
1.46 |
0.33 |
– 68 percent |
|
40 to 250 kilowatts |
36.54 |
1.56 |
– 93 percent |
|
250 to 750 kilowatts |
16.31 |
† |
REACH |
|
Larger than 750 kilowatts |
10.50 |
16.00 |
+52 percent |
|
Total |
112.57 |
88.55 |
-21 percent |
4,423.15 megawatts
In addition, Flanders has minimally increased the amount of solar panels that will be installed in 2021, from 298.29 megawatts to 298.48 megawatts. It is again a bit closer to the target of 300 megawatts, which Energy Minister Zuhal Demir used last calendar year.
According to VEKA, Flanders now has a total of 4,423.15 megawatts of photovoltaic systems at the end of April. The diagram below shows the installed capacity per calendar year up to and including May 2022.
