The societal value of rooftop solar panels on non-profit housing in Denmark​

Situation

BL planned to renovate many of their buildings in the coming years and planned to combine the renovations with setting up solar panels on the buildings’ rooftops to lower the costs of these installations. The idea for the local building organisations was to be both (partly) self-sufficient in their power demand and to support the green transition.

However, Danish tariff regulation for producing electricity for own consumption gave some adverse incentives and additional costs for these buildings. This was due both to discrete jumps in the tariff pricing with solar panel size and for sharing electricity between units within the same building organisation.

We were asked to analyse the economic implications of the Danish tariff regulation for specific building organisations around Copenhagen and assessed how much the business case for solar panels (and batteries) would be improved in more cost-real tariff scenarios. To consider seasonality and daily variations, we used an hourly production and consumption model to analyse the implications of tariffs in different scenarios for each hour of the year. ​

Outcome

We found that rooftop solar panels and decentralised batteries can help lower the pressure on the power grid, also in peak demand periods. Adverse tariff regulation weakens the business case for placing rooftop solar panels and batteries on buildings, as building organisations have high costs of sharing electricity internally due to tariffs. Better use of the EU defined energy communities and more cost-real tariff regulation would lower these barriers. ​

To find out more about our Climate Energy & Natural Resources service, click the link below.

solar
Copenhagen Economics provided clear insights into the potential benefits of rooftop solar on rental housing to alleviate the pressure on the public grid
BL Danmarks Almene Boliger [The Danish Federation Of Non-profit Housing Providers]​