Winfried Hoffmann's blog

There are many prestigious prizes which institutions and academics award to honor people for their exceptional efforts or accomplishments that benefit science, academia or even mankind. And many of them are not well known yet.

I was delighted to once again be part of a high-level gathering of stakeholders from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the photovoltaic (PV) industry while attending the 5th Executive Conference of the Photovoltaic Power Sector (PVPS) for the IEA in Montreux, Switzerland, which is held every four years since 1990.Read more

At the current Photovoltaic (PV) Symposium in Bad Staffelstein the main focus is on the worldwide information exchange about the state of the technology - both from the national and international market development perspectives. Read more

European leaders have acknowledged that the European Union (EU) possesses the resources it needs to tackle climate change. However, instead of letting the market define its needs, the EU has pledged to develop a society that is truly sustainable, and provide a model that the rest of the world can follow.Read more

The feed-in tariff (FiT) and net metering are both methods by which a utility company compensates a homeowner or other producer for the energy fed back into the grid. Simply put, net metering requires one meter, FiT requires two.

In net metering the meter simply “runs backwards” when a homeowner’s solar panels are producing more electricity than the property is using, sending the excess energy back through transmission lines to other energy consumers.Read more