First of all you should find out if the territorial plan on which the plot is situated enables placement of a photovoltaic power plant (PVPP). A personal visit of the local authority is the best solution. The industrial zones are suitable for the placement of PVPP. Your next step should be a securing of connecting capacity with the power distribution company. Then you should prepare a project for obtaining a construction permit (territorial approval is sufficient for small installations and family houses) and you can start with the construction.

30 days is a standard period for the issue of statement. The ČEZ distribution company currently has a 60-day term for the statement issue because of a big interest before the end of the year. The statement is usually issued within 14 days in case of installations for family houses.

You can request for the preference of a specific transformer station but the decision must be made by the distribution company that must evaluate the particular transformer station as suitable. In the opposite case the company will offer some other connecting place with a sufficient dimensioning at the vicinity of the intended PVPP.

You have to create a new delivery point in case of a direct sale. It represents a creation of a complete new electric installation from photovoltaic cells up to the main consumer switchboard that must contain a separate line protection, new main circuit breaker and electrometer. It will be necessary to carry out excavation works in case of a family house with a garden and electrometer installed at the border of the plot (in the fence column).
It is also necessary to make a new contract with the distributing company and to obtain a new customer number. You have to take a fee for connecting into account.
The price is fixed for 20 years with annual increase by 2 up to 4% (index of industrial inflation) in case of direct sale.
In case of the green bonus you consume the energy yourself. This is an original sense of these installations – you produce energy and you do not depend on the suppliers. A new delivery point is not created. The redemption price is currently at the level of 90% of value of fixed redemption prices. The lower price is balanced by the fact that you decrease your power take-off from the distribution network. We can say that the green bonus is usually more beneficial. We can hardly speak about complete independence – in case of a power failure the PVPPs must also be switched off automatically for security reasons during the distribution network repairs. The main switches of the distribution network would be switched off but the PVPPs would further supply electricity into the network and that is not possible. The green bonus level is determined by decree of the Energy Regulatory Office annually.

Invoicing to attraction zone distribution company must be sent monthly during the PVPP operation. Production report must be sent to the Energy Regulatory office that should contain the capacities during individual periods, delivery to the network, power consumption, etc.

The immunity from taxation is terminated after 5 years following the year in which the PVPP has been put into operation.

Quartz sand is the initial material that is used for the solar cell production. The raw material is purified by a special method and it is processed to create monocrystalline or polycrystalline silicon.
Crucible drawing from melt is used for the production of monocrystalline cells. Silicon crystal is immersed into the silicon melt. The liquid silicon attaches with the identical lattice structure to the crystalline lattice of immersed crystal while the crystal is pulled out slowly from the batch. This is the way or production of silicon rods with the length over 1 meter and diameter of 12 cm or more. In case of polycrystalline cells the hot silicon is casted into rod mould and it is cooled down slowly. The rods (monocrystalline as well as polycrystalline) are subsequently cut to slabs with the thickness of 0.16 mm by a wire saw. Each slab is ground and a large-area P-N junction is created by diffusion. The slab surface is made coarse by etching. This procedure will create a pyramid structure – anti-reflecting layer. Semiconducting P-N junction generates electricity during exposure which is collected by means of printed conductive bus network on the front side of the cell (comb structure) and continuous aluminium contact on the reverse side of the silicon slab.
All produced photovoltaic cells are tested and sorted, they are interconnected by means of flat wires into series and they are laminated under the tempered glass into EVA material. The production itself is finished after the hermetic interconnection of the interface box with bridging diodes. The final inspection and tests of all panels are the final steps of this whole procedure.

There is no difference between a panel with monocrystalline silicon and a panel with polycrystalline silicon from the standpoint of their application. The individual cells made from monocrystals have better efficiency in comparison with polycrystalline cells but they do not fulfil the panel surface completely. The capacity per area is therefore the same. There is also no difference in the service life as well as in the capacity decrease during service life. The price per capacity unit is the same for Phonosolar panels.
There is a quite frequent opinion that the polycrystalline panels react better to the diffusion of light, however this myth has been created by an incorrect confusion of polycrystalline panels with amorphous (thin-film) panels.
Nanotechnology is more similar to the production of the thin-film and it has nothing in common with the production of mono- or polycrystals.
Only laboratory samples are available at the moment (as well as for the last several years).

The electric current is generated in a thin applied layer of silicon and other metals in comparison with standard technologies (monocrystalline and polycrystalline panels). The efficiency of these cells is substantially lower – only from 5% to 10%. There is also a faster output decrease after the commissioning in comparison with mono- and polycrystalline cells. The amorphous cells are cheaper in comparison with the standard cells but approximately double area is necessary for the same installed output. They can therefore be used at places where the investor is not limited by space.

It is necessary to pay a full rate of VAT valid at the time of the construction implementation in case of the key-ready construction. It means 19% VAT for the year 2009, 20% VAT for year 2010. The only exceptions are not yet approved houses for social housing (living area up to 350 m2). They have the VAT rate of 9% (for the year 2009), respectively 10 % (for the year 2010).

The qualification of responsible representative is not proved for the electricity production up to the installed capacity of 20 kW:

• Natural person must fulfil the qualification. If he/she does not fulfil the requirement, he/she must have a responsible representative.
• Legal entity must always appoint a responsible representative.

The applicant himself will sign in the name of a natural person. The statutory body will sign in the name of a legal entity.
In case that the applicant does not have an assigned ICO (Identification number of organization), it will be assigned by the Energy Regulatory Office upon the applicant’s request.

The maximum capacity of the power plant is limited (besides size of plot and financial sources) by the capacity of network at the intended location, or possibly by a distance of the point of connection from the PVPP. If the connecting point is far away from the intended location of production, the total price can higher and the power plant can loose its rentability.
The construction of plants for electricity production with total installed electric capacity of 30 MW and more is possible only on the basis of state authorisation. The ministry will make a final decision on granting the authorization.
The ministry participates in the area management in the matter of granting of authorisation for the construction of electricity producing plant and it is also the respective authority in the building control according to special legal regulation.

The recovery of investment is from 7 to 12 let depending on the power plant placement, exposure (= weather), orientation to the south, quality of used components, method of physical protection of photovoltaic power plant and means of financing.

The lowest acceptable amount for the construction of PVPP that has an investment and construction sense is above 2 kWp. This represents an investment in the amount of about 200,000 CZK. The PVPP size depends on the amount the investor is able to spend. It also depends on the size of plot or roof for the PVPP installation. These factors will also influence the final price of the photovoltaic power plant.

The service costs are not expected in case of the small roof installations (with the capacity up to 10 kW). For bigger installations a service contract modified for the particular installation is usually prepared.

YES, the revision and certification can be issued by local engineering inspector with a round stamp. The price of revision is up to 3,000 CZK.

You do not need to do them.

The inverter is a top electronic device that is supplied with a guarantee. The guarantee period can be extended (according to the supplier’s offer) above a general scope in case that the owner of the PVPP wishes so. The replacement of the device (piece by piece) during the guarantee period is secured within 24 hours in case of top suppliers, unless there is a visible mechanical damage, or if there was an unqualified intervention into the device. General service life of the device is from 10 to 15 years based on the producer, used technology and correct inverter dimensioning of the inverter in relation to the capacity of the panels, because it can substantially influence the service life of the device. We can expect that the new type of inventer for PVPP operating for 10 years will have a much better quality, it will be more reliable and affordable than current inventers (or the same type of inventer, if it will be still produced, will be available for much lower price). It will be caused by a rapid technical development in this area. The inventers in the power plants in the U.S.A. work even for tens of years. You must always take the workmanship of assembly, design of system components and their input quality into account. The cheapest system does not mean the best alternative and the highest price is not automatically a guarantee of top quality.

It depends on the owner of the PVPP, how and whether he will decide to guard the object. The utilization of a camera system and motion detectors, possibly physical guarding of the object in combination with camera system are the most frequently used solutions. It is not recommended to operate the PVPP separately in the fields without protections due to the very high value of the power plant (tens of millions of CZK). A camera system connected to the central protection board is the most frequently used solution, if the power plant is installed on production halls.

The final decision must always be done by the investor but the idea of safety at the vicinity of busy road is illusory (especially during night-time). The price of protection against thieves is insignificant in comparison to the total investment.

We do not offer this variant at the moment.

Control of PVPP production is possible within the range of basic data (daily capacity, momentary output, total amount of produced energy from PVPP launch, string voltage), which can be controlled directly on the inventer´s display. This device is a centre of the power plant and it enables to change direct current from panel to alternating current for the network with a high efficiency (up to 98%). The device secures “phasing” to the distribution network, PVPP disconnecting and evaluation and it enables the best possible utilization of electricity produced by the photovoltaic panel in current conditions. The equipment for wireless measurement of PVPP parameters is an alternative of the inventer. We have much more data available in this case in comparison with data reading directly from the inventer and moreover there is a possibility of interconnection of this device with PC and Internet. The data evaluation as well as processing can be done on a much higher level. The device enabling this arrangement (for example Sunny Beam made by world producer SMA) offers another big advantage. The inverters are installed at places, where it is useful from the standpoint of assembly. It does not mean that this is also a suitable place for possible daily data reading (depending on the interest of the PVPP owner). The inventer installed in the attic is useful from the standpoint of assembly, but not from the standpoint of access to the display. We can read the daily output on the display of ordinary types of inventers but output history is not available and neither is the daily output curve. These functions are secured by a wireless dataloger.