PV investors will finally get their electricity cash

Families who forked out hundreds of euros on a photovoltaic system will finally see their investment paying off when they start receiving bills crediting them for the amount of electricity they fed the national grid.

The software to register photovoltaic systems in line with the regulating feed-in tariff legislation is at long last up-and-running and families are now receiving bills with the units of electricity produced credited to their account.

A spokesman for the Finance Ministry, which is responsible for the Water Services Corporation and ARMS Ltd, the company which took over collecting revenue for WSC and Enemalta, said owners of PV systems have started receiving updated bills.

Nearly €6 million has been paid out in grants, through various schemes partly financed by the EU, for the installation of photovoltaic panels for the production of electricity from sunlight.

This amount does not include the scheme offered by Malta Enterprise to companies that wanted to invest in green energy systems.

The total capacity of photovoltaic systems installed in Malta so far have a total capacity of 6.6MWp of electricity which is being fed directly into the national grid.

Families who invested in a photovoltaic system had to face several delays, which included the installation of the export meters.

General Workers’ Union directives for Enemalta employees affected the installation of these meters. When the directives were lifted, the employees were faced with a backlog and had to work around the clock to recoup the time lost.

But this was not the only delay. There were also delays in the installation of the software which calculates how much electricity is being produced by every system. This meant families were feeding the grid without being compensated.

The photovoltaic system uses solar panels to convert sunlight into electricity.