Abstract
The share of solar energy in German electricity supply has increased rapidly in recent years. This is due to guaranteed feed-in tariffs in conjunction with decreasing prices for solar panels. However, little is known on geographical factors, settlement structure, neighborhood effects or the crucial role of middle actors for the spatial distribution of photovoltaics. The presented study addresses these issues by accounting for more than 820,000 small-scale installations (≤16kWp) registered between 1991 and 2012.It turns out that the installed capacity (and generated supply) from small-scale installations clearly varies among German counties. Based on econometric analysis, this can partly be explained by differences in solar radiation. However, other factors, such as house density, homeownership, per-capita income and neighborhood effects seem to be equally or even more important. In contrast, households’ ecological attitude hardly affects the investment decisions.
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