Monitoring results of the German 100 000 roofs programme

To support the market introduction of photovoltaics in Germany, the 100 000 roof solar electricity programme, a soft loan programme, was introduced in January 1999. It aims to support the installation of 300 MW photovoltaic installations until the end of 2003. A monitoring made by order of the German federal ministry of economics analysed the implementation of the programme with regard to the following aspects: regional repartition in German regions, handling in the executing banks and marketing, effects on the German solar industry (market shares of German and foreign producers), distribution of the value added per installation, operating efficiency of the PV-installations for the users, environmental assessment and interdependency with other support programmes and the German renewable energies act. The emerging success is explained.