Germany installed almost 3 GW of solar in 2018

PV demand grew 68% year-on-year from the level seen in 2017 as Germany’s cumulative installed solar generation capacity reached 45.92 GW.

February 1, 2019 Sandra Enkhardt

More than 150 MW of ground-mounted solar project capacity was added in Germany last month.

Image: Trianel

From pv magazine Germany.

Germany’s Federal Network Agency – the Bundesnetagentur – has reported 2,960 MW of newly installed PV capacity was added in Germany last year, with 376.5 MW added in December alone.

That means the German solar market grew 68% year on year, with all major market segments seeing big rises in new installations as the nation his its government-set 2.5 GW annual growth target for the first time since 2013.

The statistics for last month included 156.3 MW from 55 ground-mounted plants. Among those projects, only 15.1 MW were accounted for by installations up to 750 kW in size, which are not developed through tenders.

Some 220.2 MW of solar rooftops were registered in December and 512 kW under the tenants’ solar power supply scheme. The full year saw 305 plants added with a total capacity of 6.8 MW under the scheme, falling well short of an annual cap of 500 MW for such projects.

Cuts start tomorrow

At the end of the year Germany could boast a cumulative 45,929 MW of grid-connected solar installed under the national renewable energy law (EEG). That figure is just 6 GW short of the 52 GW point at which, under current legislation, the FIT system for German PV will expire.

Tomorrow, cuts to FIT payments mandated in November’s Energy Act will come into force, with systems above 100 kW of capacity to see the FIT reduce to €0.0987/kWh. Rooftop systems with a capacity of 40-100 kW will receive €0.0947/kWh. Further reductions planned for March and April will see the subsidies fall further, €0.0939 and €0.0890/kWh, respectively.

Also from tomorrow, rooftop systems up to 10 kW in capacity will receive €0.1135/kWh and those up to 40 kW in scale will get €0.1103/kWh.

German PV association BSW-Solar said it was confident demand will continue to rise, and that the growth of the market last year was mainly down to falls in PV system prices.

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