They explained why the government is actually canceling the annual balance of solar panels

During a TV interview on Monday evening, Erno Kiss highlighted the following key messages regarding the planned solar changes announced by the government over the weekend:

• A year ago, the government promised to tighten the solar billing system so that from 2024 the possibility of annual balance calculation would be limited to ten years from the date of installation of the solar panel, but now the ministry has announced that from 2024 all realized investments in solar energy are immediately transferred from the annual balance sheet. on a monthly basis, regardless of the installation date, and this reduces the efficiency of such systems.
• While he told RTL on Sunday that the planned 8-10 year investment “will not pay off,” he now clarified his message as follows: “They will never (pay off – ed.) is not the right expression. , maybe it was a little skewed He put it like this: if this is indeed the final change, as the ministry just noted, then the return on investment will worsen, “It will have a very negative impact on those who have not timed their investments in this way.” And in another sentence, he put it this way: “In the annual balance sheet, the payback of the solar system is now 8-10 years with a reduced cost of utilities. From the moment I can’t use all my summer products, say, in winter, in which case this return will be significantly delayed.
• Who said that: “I think those who have installed it so far are doing it worse, but they certainly do well, since the solar system is a form of self-care, that is why we definitely recommend installing solar systems in the future, but from now on we will have to calculate the return on them differently and use them differently.” As an example, he cited the charging of an electric car in order to make the most of the electricity produced in the monthly balance.
• When asked who was doing well/badly, he added: “Those who have an old outdated building and heating costs here are much higher, perhaps less well-off. Therefore, we definitely advise them not only to install a solar system, but also to modernize buildings, reduce heat generation, increase thermal insulation, replace windows and doors. That alone means a lot of money.”
• When asked if the government should change the annual balance to monthly from 2024 due to the EU regulation, he practically answered in the negative. because he drew attention to the fact that the EU regulation only provides that the government should not support new methods of electricity production from 2024. So for solar systems that will be installed by the end of 2023, the government could still provide support from 2024 through maintaining the annual balance system, but for those who install only from 2024, they really cannot provide support by including it into the accounting structure system, and that is why they will come to the gross accounting system. Therefore, he stated: “it is not stipulated here that the balance settlement should be canceled. It is stipulated there that it can still be maintained,” and he cited Poland as an example, where a period of 10-15 years was included in the balance sheet. a system of calculations precisely in order to definitely contribute to the return on investment made over time.
• He said that they have very good professional relations with the Ministry of Energy, but neither they nor any professional organization known to him participated in the transformation of the balance sheet system, “because we were not given the opportunity to do so.”
• As the real reason for the change in the annual balance to a monthly one, he named: “We believe that it would definitely be unethical to introduce this, because more than 200 thousand households will be put at a disadvantage, which, unfortunately, cannot have any other result than reducing the budget deficit, since “the cost of reducing utilities is huge.” Although it was not mentioned in the program, here is the backstory of the argument, which was already mentioned yesterday, that during the summer months a solar panel can supply the grid with kilowatt-hours of unused energy in the balance system for 5 HUF. , but in winter, when the solar panel produces little, but, for example, if the demand for electric heating increases, then you are forced to buy it in the network at a price of about 38 HUF, or even higher than the average consumption, in the new communal system you will receive electricity for 70 Hungarian forints, as already in the monthly balance it cannot compare the net electricity supplied in summer with the net electricity received in winter. Ultimately, the financial position of the universal service provider MVM will improve due to this changed accounting system, which means that the company will require less overhead support from the budget, so its deficit will also decrease.
• With regard to the Department of Energy, Erne Kiss said that it is definitely positive what they will announce in September: in which part of the country the possibility of electricity supply for newly installed solar systems will be opened, so from now on the installation of solar panels will be open. systems without storage can start up again. However, he drew attention to the fact that the order to stop national deliveries at the end of October last year did not even have professional grounds at that time.

Cover image credit: MTI Photo/Sándor Branstetter