The green energy is a really good idea but hundreds of solar power cells installed by municipalities in Denmark, are illegal, says the preliminary assessment by the Danish Energy Agency (DEA). As ScienceNordic understood, all of these panels do not live up to legal requirements.
The recent preliminary assessment by the DEA, up to 267 solar cells across Denmark do not comply with the law. In total, these solar panels have a combined capacity of 7.4 megawatts and this power is the equivalent to the annual consumption of 1,356 households. According to DEAreprt, these panels located in 73 different municipalities, and the failure to comply means that municipalities do not pay full tax for the energy generated by the units.
Denmark is known as the country with the multimillion green investments, consequently, the solar and wind energy is well developed over there. The legal issue with the cells is related to them not being administered as separate companies from associated buildings or fixtures, a legal requirement when solar panels are installed as part of new developments or major renovations.
Denmark Energy Agency investigates the illegally set solar panels
The energy and climate minister Lars Christian Lilleholt ordered to conduct the investigation in December last year that Silkeborg Municipality was one of the local councils using the illegal solar power generation.
“We are surprised that the resumption of our investigation has shown that there are so many such units in municipalities,”
the DEA’s section head Jakob Henrik Juul told the local newspaper.
Municipalities said that solar panel installations are less economically viable if municipal resources must be used to set up and run companies to manage the power generators, before then purchasing the resultant energy at the correctly taxed rates. Minister Lilleholt stressed he did not want to see the solar cells decommissioned but said that “municipalities’ green investments must not be driven by speculation in tax avoidance through illegally installed solar energy panels.”
