The Czech energy sector has entered a phase where the question is no longer whether photovoltaics will succeed, but how companies will work with it. In 2025, solar power plants became the third-largest source of electricity generation in the Czech Republic, with annual production reaching approximately 4.7 TWh—more than a 20% year-on-year increase. This development clearly shows that photovoltaics have become a standard part of the energy mix.

At the same time, it is becoming clear that installing a photovoltaic power plant alone no longer automatically guarantees savings for companies. PV SERVICE PLUS has been pointing this out for a long time. The energy market is changing faster than technology, and companies that focus only on electricity generation are starting to hit new limits of both the market and the distribution grid. “A PV plant alone is no longer enough today. If a company does not have a system for managing production, batteries, and a plan for using surpluses, it may happen that the energy produced does not bring the expected savings and may even generate additional costs,” explains Eduard Michna, Technical Director at PV SERVICE PLUS.

The year 2025 confirmed a significant increase in hours with zero and negative electricity prices. During the year, electricity was traded for more than 370 hours at a price that had no economic value for producers. These situations occur mainly during periods of high photovoltaic output, when electricity supply significantly exceeds current demand. For companies without the ability to store or manage energy, this means they feed surplus electricity into the grid at times when electricity is cheapest—or even burdened with additional costs.

From a technical perspective, the core issue is a mismatch between generation and consumption. Photovoltaic plants generate the most energy around midday, while most company operations have consumption peaks at other times of day. This gap was partly overlooked in the past, but with the introduction of a 15-minute trading interval in the electricity market, every deviation has a direct financial impact. The higher the installed PV capacity, the more important precise control of energy flows becomes. This is exactly where the approach long promoted by PV SERVICE PLUS comes into play. In this concept, photovoltaics are seen as the first step, not the final solution. Real value comes from connecting the PV plant with battery storage and intelligent energy management. Battery systems make it possible to store surplus energy when electricity is cheap or negative and use it later during periods of higher consumption or higher prices. They also serve as a tool to limit feed-in to the distribution grid and stabilize consumption.

Technically, this involves power control on the scale of seconds to minutes, tracking current generation, consumption, battery state, and connection limits. Energy management decides whether to store energy, use it on-site, use it for vehicle charging, or export a limited amount to the grid. As a result, companies avoid penalties, reduce distribution fees, and increase the share of self-consumption of generated electricity.

This concept has proven effective in practice, for example in an industrial site with very limited grid connection, where the goal was to electrify the company fleet including trucks. The site had a connection capacity of approximately 110 kW, which on its own would not allow the operation of a larger number of charging stations. The solution designed and implemented by PV SERVICE PLUS was the installation of a 99 kWp photovoltaic plant, complemented by battery storage with a capacity of 2 MWh and power of 1 MW. The project also included carports with integrated photovoltaics and a combination of AC and DC charging stations. A key element of the entire system was energy management, which controls energy flows so that the maximum grid draw is never exceeded, unwanted feed-in is eliminated, and on-site generation is used as much as possible. Thanks to battery storage, it is possible to cover even energy-intensive charging without the need to build a new transformer station or increase the reserved capacity.

Another revolutionary element that will significantly affect company operations in 2026–2027 is community energy and sharing surpluses. Thanks to legislative changes Lex OZE II and III, companies will be able to efficiently share generated energy between branches or even within an energy community with other entities. “Sharing energy between branches or within a community is a trend that will fundamentally change the payback of investments in PV and batteries,” says Radovan Hloška, Executive Director of PV SERVICE PLUS.

Another major trend is flexibility aggregation. Large battery storage systems—such as the mentioned 2 MWh unit—will not only serve the company’s internal needs, but will also be able to provide balancing services for the transmission system, becoming an active market participant. Companies can thus gain additional revenue and shorten the investment payback period. The principle of flexibility aggregation will become standard in the coming years, and companies that adopt it early will gain a competitive advantage.

The outlook for 2026 and 2027 suggests that similar situations will become more frequent. Further PV expansion will lead to higher price volatility, more frequent periods of extremely low prices, and further tightening of connection conditions. Companies that work with photovoltaics in isolation will increasingly face production curtailment and unnecessary losses. By contrast, companies that invest in managed energy systems with storage, community sharing, and the option of flexibility aggregation will achieve more stable costs, higher energy self-sufficiency, and greater control over their energy.

In this context, PV SERVICE PLUS acts as a partner helping companies navigate technical, economic, and market changes. It is not only about installing technologies, but about designing an entire system that makes sense today and will stand up to the conditions of 2026 and 2027. Energy is becoming a strategic business area, and the ability to actively manage it, share it, and use it flexibly will be one of the key competitiveness factors in the coming years.

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