+ 105 GWh: After the photovoltaic boom on rooftops, battery systems are becoming a hit in the Czech Republic

Decline in the number of newly connected photovoltaic power plants
Three network operators in the Czech Republic report a significant, approximately 40 percent decrease in the number of newly connected photovoltaic power plants. Their output fell by approximately 30 percent year-on-year. The market cooling mainly concerns domestic rooftop power plants.

In the first nine months of this year, ČEZ Distribuce connected 13,575 photovoltaic power plants with an installed capacity of 383.5 MWp. More than three quarters of them were small sources up to ten kWp at the low-voltage level. According to the company, more than 87 percent of the installations are equipped with battery storage.

Approximately 6,250 photovoltaic power plants with an output of 144 MWp were newly connected this year on EG. D. D, which operates in South Moravia and South Bohemia, was this year a new photovoltaic power plant with an output of up to 10 kW, of which there have been approximately 4,600 so far. Almost a fifth of the installations were requested by companies.

The decline in interest in new solar panels also affects Prague. In the first three quarters of this year, PREdistribuce connected 875 new photovoltaic power plants with a total output of 15.4 MWp in the capital.

Interest in connecting new photovoltaic power plants is declining for the second year in a row. Last year, 44,593 new photovoltaic power plants were put into operation in the Czech Republic, which is 38,106 fewer year-on-year. This is mainly due to lower demand from households. According to them, this market is already saturated compared to previous record years. On the other hand, the construction of larger corporate facilities is growing slightly.

Currently, more than 230,000 photovoltaic power plants are connected in the Czech Republic. Their total capacity has already exceeded 5,000 MWp.

Energy storage boom
While investor interest in new domestic solar panels in the Czech Republic has cooled significantly, the opposite trend applies to battery energy storage systems (BESS). The storage market is facing a wave of new connection requests, especially for large-capacity standalone batteries (BESS).

As confirmed by a distribution company executive on condition of anonymity, the two largest distribution network operators in the Czech Republic – ČEZ Distribuce and E.GD – received several thousand applications for connection to BESS with an output of more than 30,000 MW and a capacity of more than 105 GWh at the end of October this year (see figure below).

The interest in BESS installed mainly at the high-voltage level is unprecedented. “The demand from new investors for BESS is currently reaching the limits of both DSO and PSO capacities. The current legislative system is not prepared for something like this,” Jan Fousek, Director of the AKU-BAT Association, commented on the current development of the situation.

The BESS megaboom in the Czech Republic was initiated by an amendment to the Energy Act, known as Lex RES 3. The amendment introduces rules for energy storage, aggregation and flexibility into Czech legislation. Additional rules for large BESS are set out in regulations issued by the Energy Regulatory Office (ERO).

BESS license holders from ERO will receive certain benefits. Among other things, they will be exempted from paying for supported energy sources and for system services, if it concerns the volume of electricity consumed and subsequently returned to the system via BESS. In practice, this should eliminate the fact that the same electricity will be burdened with these payments twice.

According to analysts from Aurora Energy Research, hundreds to thousands of new large-capacity BESSs are expected to be connected in the Czech Republic by 2030. These will be stand-alone or co-located BESSs with a capacity of around 6,000 MWh.