The Big Buyers Working Together (BBWT) Community of Practice (CoP) working on Sustainable Solar panels has made the guide ‘How to Prepare and Start a PV Project’ available in all 24 EU languages. In addition it has created a concept template of the Procurement Requirements and Award Criteria for PV projects. 

The guide provides public and private buyers with an overview of all the steps they need to take to realise a PV project. From defining the project size, arranging financing and subsidies, obtaining permissions and insurances, and many more key steps. 

The procurement template includes requirements related to quality, safety and sustainability aspects. It covers PV modules, inverters, cabling, mounting constructions and more. 
Translations of these procurement criteria are also available in all 24 EU languages. 

Both the guide and template have been applied in practice in the Netherlands to create  PV projects with better financial conditions, a longer working life and better sustainability.

Status: Concept

Please note that both the guide and the template are draft documents, concepts that will need modifications to reflect national conditions in each EU country. The current concepts are translations of documents that were created in the Netherlands. Although many technical requirements and process steps will be similar, there will also be regulatory and other differences between your country and the Netherlands.  Nonetheless,the documents and criteria can already be used for a procurement processes, however please be aware that some edits are required for your country. 

Please contribute and propose edits/additions to us 

We invite especially public organisations from all EU countries to download these documents and to propose edits and amendmends. After reviewing edits we hope to come to a ‘final version 1.0’ for your country, to be widely distributed and used in your country. For instance, the guide contains various lists of Dutch companies; for your country, these companies may be deleted and replaced by relevant companies from your country. The national PV trade association may help here.

Public buyers working on solar PV projects, and other national experts who have experience with these projects, are strongly invited to contribute and join us. Please send any edits to bigbuyers@eurocities.eu 

Joining our Community 

Public buyers and other public organisations interested in joining the community: please send an email to us at bigbuyers@eurocities.eu and/or refer to the link .. 

Joining the Technical Working Group (TWG) of our Community 

Within the community a group of 5-10 organisations constitute the TWG, which makes deep-dives into key technical and sustainability topics. They propose and decide on the various criteria in the template. If your organisation is public and you have (access to) experts on these topics, you are most welcome to join. Please email us at: bigbuyers@eurocities.eu if you are interested. 

Why this guide and template?

The CoP seeks to provide insights and transparency into financial, quality and sustainability challenges of PV projects.Too often we see problems related to the safety or quality of PV projects. Moreover, many people even in the PV sector are not aware of the differences in sustainability of solar panels, nor of the fact that huge improvements can be made at just a slight price premium. 

Next steps of the CoP Sustainable Solar PV 

In addition to this guide, the Sustainable Solar PV CoP is currently drafting more documents,  for instance the Guide on Sustainability aspects. This Guide provides insights into key sustainability issues and market information, including pricing, on more sustainable PV modules. This and other documents  will be published as soon as possible.