The amount of households and small businesses in Belgium that have embraced solar technology is amongst the lowest in the EU with the Belgium Government setting low renewable energy targets which are net yet being achieved.

The most proactive region with regard to Solar Energy is Walloon who have set a target of 5% of total energy consumption to come from solar power by the end of 2010 but this figure is currently running at 3.4%.

More information can be found at the Flanders Investment & Trade website at http://www.investinflanders.com/fr/sectors_activities/renewable_energy/default.aspx and the Belgian technology website, http://www.vito.be

Planning permission is no longer required for the installation of solar panels as long as the panels do not cover more than 20% of the area of the roof.

The Belgian Government do offer grants and incentives to install Solar power which are not heavily promoted and the feed-in tariff that is offered is quite unique in its structure.

The Belgian feed-in tariff is centred around green certificates. When a household or business has solar panels installed they will receive a green certificate which can then be exchanged by the operator for a guaranteed value.

There is a sliding scale of the value of the feed-in tariffs that are available depending on when the installation is completed and a recently published Government document describes this in detail http://www2.vlaanderen.be/economie/energiesparen/reg/doc/dakisolatie.pdf

The green certificates can be obtained from the Flemish Regulator for the Electricity and Gas at www.vreg.be where various forms can be downloaded but is should be noted that the solar panel installer must be registered and approved by this department otherwise any application will be refused.

There are also various grants that are available but they are relatively low when compared to other EU countries and in 2009 they averaged EUR 500 per installation.

On a new installation the length of time taken to recoup an initial investment on an average size house of an installation price of EUR 15,500, when taking advantage of the full green certificate scheme would be 12 years.

It is forecast that the Belgian government will be forced to implement other incentives with regard to solar energy in the near future so as to combat the ever increasing energy prices. There are encouraging signs that progress is being made in that area with the news that several large solar panel manufacturing companies are starting to operate there.