Lithuania pledges 40 million euros to fund rooftop solar boom

By Andrius Sytas

VILNIUS (Reuters) – Lithuania’s government voted on Wednesday to pledge a total of 40.4 million euros to help people buying solar panels, as demand is booming to help alleviate rising energy prices.

It has originally allocated 5.4 million euros to cover part of the cost of rooftop solar panels this year, which turned out not nearly enough to cope with demand for solar power, boosted by the global spike in energy prices.

Demand for rooftop solar is booming in several European countries, according to the Norway-based company Otovo.

“We saw a boom of people who want our support to buy solar panels on their roof and in remote parks”, Finance Minister Giedre Skaiste told a broadcast government meeting. “We hope the additional funds will be enough to fund every request.”

The support also covers power plants built in special rural parks for city-dwellers who do not own the roof of their apartment blocks.

Lithuania is pioneering the novel rural solar parks scheme as it aims to have a third of the country receiving electricity from their own solar panels by 2030.

(Reporting by Andrius Sytas in Vilnius; editing by David Evans)