What three months of reader quotes say about pricing discipline in Flanders and Wallonia.
The product is mature; the market is not. Identical rooftops still attract quotes thousands of euros apart, and the fine print decides the real number.
Over a quarter of normalised reader quotes, the headline spread reached €6,000 on the same roof. But most of that gap is not hardware — it is line items the cheap quote leaves out: scaffolding, inspection, registration, monitoring. The real spread, after those are added back, is far narrower.
For Belgium, read this through the capacity tariff and the 6% renovation VAT. For the Netherlands, through the end of salderen and supplier feed-in charges. For Germany, through certification culture and the §14a framework. One analysis, three invoices — the regional sections above carry the specifics.
What to do with it: the action list at the end of this piece is designed to be finished in one evening. If you are mid-purchase, run your quotes through Quote Check after reading; if you already own the hardware, the checklist tells you which setting or document to verify this week.
The numbers behind the headline: 5 kWp on a Flemish roof yields 4,500–5,000 kWh a year; equivalent quotes spread by up to €6,000 at the headline level and €1,300–€2,500 after line-by-line normalisation; and the exclusions — scaffolding, inspection, registration, monitoring — explain most of the fake spread.
A case from our files makes it concrete. Two quotes for the same Ghent roof, identical modules and inverter: €8,950 versus €10,400. Normalised — scaffolding, inspection, monitoring included — the ‘expensive’ one was €700 cheaper, with the stronger warranty. The buyer nearly signed the other one on the headline number.
Method and sources as noted inline. No manufacturer or installer reviewed this before publication. Corrections: marked in the article within 48 hours.
