OK, either the pixels on my screen are drunk, or this is WILD!!
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're reselling back to the utility for 5 times more than you buy? Would your utility sign a contract with me if I laid a cable across Germany to France?
Would it be possible for you to have some kind of battery set-up, allowing you to buy electricity at night and sell it back during the day? Would anyone notice? Even if a battery system is 70% efficient, you'd still be making money, and relieving the utility's day load at the same time.

[ranting and whining]
I wish Poland would finally grow up: we're even farther back in RE than France, but the government only talks about reducing greenhouse gasses, energy dependence, etc., and then grants permits for the largest brown coal strip mine operation in Central Europe. In theory, the utility must buy any RE (exept nuclear) produced by it's customers, but in reality it always finds a way to not do it. Two examples with wind turbines:
(1) Someone had a wind gennie for his workshop and wanted to sell surplus energy. The utility demanded that he states exactly (down to the kW and hour) how much he will produce, 48 hours ahead of time!! As if it was possible to predict how the wind will blow in 2 hours, let alone 2 days.
(2) Someone wanted to invest in RE and have a wind turbine in their yard. They asked the proper department for a permit to put up a tower. The answer was "We do not see a need for a wind turbine, since your property is already connected to the grid."
Go figure. Then bang your head on wall. In the usual spot.
Sorry about the ranting and whining, I'm just pissed at my government.
[/ranting and whining]

That's it. This is because European Union asks all European countries to have a certain percentage of renewable energy. I don't know about Germany, except PV is much more present there than in France. I know that main European help stopped for Spain and Italy and selling price has dropped dramatically for new installations, lowering the number of new installations. Current French rates are known for new installations until end of 2009. For 2010 the rates are always unknown and the incentives may be lowered by 20%.

My selling contract is limited in number of kWh sold by year. Nobody in France should be able to achieve such an amount. They know exactly all the details of my installation and could detect if my system works "too well". They can get the value of my selling counter whenever they want from the street without having to enter my property. Their selling counter also has a system that is able to detect if I'm directly reselling electricity that I'm buying to them.

About such an "hypothetical" system, to add 10% to my production would earn 170€/year.
You would have to use a battery with a capacity of a car battery for it to last at least one year. It would cost 50€.
You would also need an inverter that is able to do 12V DC to 220V 50Hz AC which is able to feed a synchronized current with the grid. The smallest I know costs 600€ and needs much higher voltages to work.
You would also need to design a system to limit the additional power, the best would be proportional to the power you generate. This would be priceless ;)

In France lots of wind turbine projects are stopped for bad reasons : noise, "cancer"... and some cities prevent PV when they can be seen from the street !!! :(
In Spain in April the consumption lowered by 15%. They mainly disconnected the wind turbines because stopping nuclear or coal plants is too complicated :mad:

Denis.

Bumping for an update.
Groar, how has your PV installation been doing during the summer months?

Thanks to wake me up ;)

Just added June to August production figures in post #8. As you can see in posts #8 and #1, the best production was in June : the days were longer and cooler.
Nowadays the inverter is starting later and stopping sooner :( As the longest day is 21st June, today is equivalent to a day of beginning of April except we have lesser clouds and hotter temperatures.
While end of 2008 had a deficit of sun, 2009 summer has too much sun (+15% for last 3 months), a deficit of rain (only 50% of average for the last 4 months and 2 rainy days during last 4 weeks), with hotter temperatures (2-3 °C over average, which is much more at panels' level).

My current forecast for the 1st year of production is 15% under the initial forecast :(
If I had to install another solar array on my house, I would install it toward East (so they are producing when it's colder) and I would use panels less sensible to heat.

Happily the solar panels are only one of our tools to be greener and lowering consumption is another one : the current forecast for this year is 20% under last year consumption :)

Denis.