Solar for Auto-Consumption Facts – Portugal

What you need to know regarding

new solar “auto-consumption”

systems Portugal (update 01.2015):

• Auto-consumption Solar offers a free independent supply of electricity for use by domestic and commercial property owners. The technology was available for 15 years but only recently making a real “property owner´s choice” available with new compliant regulations permitting Auto-Consumo systems in Portugal.
• Auto-consumption electricity is electricity for use not for sale. It is not “mini- or micro-generation”, however all solar production schemes are now classified under one Decree-Law No. 153/2014 effective from Jan 2015. (See our Jan 2015 Newsletter).
• Systems are sized to match the “daily energy use” profile of our client´s properties.
• Systems can be sized from 250 Watts to 100 KWatts, offering a viable supplementary energy source attractive for domestic and commercial property owners.
• Systems of less than 1,500 Watts need only a prior notification for registration purposes.  Systems of only 250 Watts do not need registering.
• Where it is considered advisable to limit or prevent excess output to the grid network, a compliant option is also available.
• Payback on capital investment largely depends on system size. Factors are capital cost, your electricity profile and compliant taxes. A system of up to 5 Kwatts for a typical domestic property can be expected to pay for itself in 7 years.
• Auto-consumption Solar represents a big step towards energy saving where it counts, at the point of use. It is therefore of interest financially as well as step towards the ideal energy efficient sustainable property.

Our Proposal

Our proposal is to provide you with objective information to help make an informed decision regarding solar auto-consumption. We can undertake to profile your property´s energy use to determine payback period, provide system specifications, installation and registration services.

Note: between April and October Portugal receives an average of 10 hours sun a day. From October to January this reduces to just less than 6 hours sun each day (http://www.portugal.climatemps.com/)