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Berlin (dpa) - In Germany, 184,000 new solar power systems with an output of around 4.9 gigawatts were installed last year.

This corresponds to a performance increase of 27.6 percent compared to 2019, announced the Federal Solar Industry Association (BSW), citing data from the Federal Network Agency on Tuesday.

Accordingly, the demand from homeowners increased particularly strongly.

The industry association registered an increase of 99 percent compared to 2019 - and thus almost a doubling of demand.

According to BSW, the cause of the high demand was "a significantly increased environmental awareness, the striving of many consumers for more independence, significantly lower solar technology prices and an increasing switch to electromobility", as it says in a press release.

"We are heading in the right direction," said BSW Managing Director Carsten Körnig.

"However, we are still too slow to immunize against climate change."

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The addition of photovoltaic systems must now be increased by a factor of two to three, demanded Körnig.

This is the only way that Germany can achieve its climate protection targets and prevent bottlenecks in the electricity supply.

The opposition in Berlin still sees room for improvement.

"If the federal government had removed bureaucratic hurdles, the increase would have been twice as high," said the Green Bundestag member Oliver Krischer of the dpa.

The extension that has now become known is "absolutely gratifying".

But there is still too much “paperwork” that hinders the private installation of photovoltaic systems.

"If a landlord wants to sell his tenants electricity from a roof system, he is slowed down with an absurd number of expensive regulations," said Krischer.

According to the BSW, every tenth kilowatt hour generated in Germany in 2020 comes from solar energy.

Almost two million solar power systems are already installed.

In order to protect the climate, Germany and Europe have set themselves the goal of converting their energy supply completely to renewable energies by 2050.

In addition, the reformed Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) came into force in Germany on January 1st.

The amendment to the law is based on the goal of increasing the share of green electricity to 65 percent by 2030.

Renewable energies provided almost half of the electricity last year.

© dpa-infocom, dpa: 210202-99-272437 / 3