Solar power accounted for an estimated 12.2% of electricity production in Germany in 2023, up from 1.9% in 2010 and less than 0.1% in 2000. [3] [4] [5] [6]
Germany has been among the world's top PV installer for several years, with total installed capacity amounting to 81.8 gigawatts (GW) at the end of 2023. [7] Germany's 974 watts of solar PV per capita (2023) is the third highest in the world, behind only Australia and the Netherlands. [8] Germany's official government plans are to continuously increase renewables' contribution to the country's overall electricity consumption; current targets are 80% renewable electricity by 2030 and full decarbonization before 2040. [9]
Concentrated solar power (CSP), a solar power technology that does not use photovoltaics, has virtually no significance for Germany, as this technology demands much higher solar insolation. There is, however, a 1.5 MW experimental CSP-plant used for on-site engineering purposes rather than for commercial electricity generation, the Jülich Solar Tower owned by the German Aerospace Center. Germany's largest solar farms are located in Meuro, Neuhardenberg, and Templin with capacities over 100 MW.
According to the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, in 2022, Germany generated 60.8 TWh from solar power, or 11% of Germany's gross electricity consumption. [10] : 6
The country is increasingly producing more electricity at specific times with high solar irradiation than it needs, driving down spot-market prices [11] and exporting its surplus of electricity to its neighbouring countries, with a record exported surplus of 34 TWh in 2014. [12] A decline in spot-prices may however raise the electricity prices for retail customers, as the spread of the guaranteed feed-in tariff and spot-price increases as well. [4] : 17 As the combined share of fluctuating wind and solar is approaching 17 per cent on the national electricity mix,[ citation needed ] other issues are becoming more pressing and others more feasible. These include adapting the electrical grid, constructing new grid-storage capacity, dismantling and altering fossil and nuclear power plants and to construct a new generation of combined heat and power plants. [4] : 7
Price of solar PV systems
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During the Reagan administration in the United States, oil prices decreased and the US removed most of its policies that supported its solar industry. [14] : 143 Government subsidies were higher in Germany (as well as Japan), which prompted the solar industry supply chain to begin moving from the US to those countries. [14] : 143
Germany was one of the first countries to deploy grid-scale PV power. In 2004, Germany was the first country, together with Japan, to reach 1 GW of cumulative installed PV capacity. Since 2004 solar power in Germany has been growing considerably due to the country's feed-in tariffs for renewable energy, which were introduced by the German Renewable Energy Sources Act, and declining PV costs.
Prices of PV systems/solar power system decreased more than 50% in the 5 years since 2006. [15] By 2011, solar PV provided 18 TWh of Germany's electricity, or about 3% of the total. [16] That year the federal government set a target of 66 GW of installed solar PV capacity by 2030, [17] to be reached with an annual increase of 2.5–3.5 GW, [18] and a goal of 80% of electricity from renewable sources by 2050. [19]
More than 7 GW of PV capacity were installed annually during the record years of 2010, 2011 and 2012. For this period, the installed capacity of 22.5 GW represented almost 30% of the worldwide deployed photovoltaics.
Since 2013, the number of new installations declined significantly due to more restrictive governmental policies.
About 1.5 million photovoltaic systems were installed around the country in 2014, ranging from small rooftop systems, to medium commercial and large utility-scale solar parks. [4] : 5
It's estimated that by 2017 over 70% of the country's jobs in the solar industry have been lost in the solar sector in recent years. [1] Proponents from the PV industry blame the lack of governmental commitment, while others point out the financial burden associated with the fast-paced roll-out of photovoltaics, rendering the transition to renewable energies unsustainable in their view. [16]
A boom in small, residential balcony-mounted solar systems has been reported in the early 2020s. [20] [21] [22]
Feed-in tariff for rooftop solar [23]
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Germany introduced its feed-in tariff in 2000 and it later became a model for solar industry policy support in other countries. [14] : 145
As of 2012 [update] , the feed-in tariff costs about €14 billion (US$18 billion) per year for wind and solar installations. The cost is spread across all rate-payers in a surcharge of 3.6 €ct (4.6 ¢) per kWh [24] (approximately 15% of the total domestic cost of electricity). [25] On the other hand, as expensive peak power plants are displaced, the price at the power exchange is reduced due to the so-called merit order effect. [26] Germany set a world record for solar power production with 25.8 GW produced at midday on 20 and 21 April 2015. [27]
According to the solar power industry, a feed-in tariff is the most effective means of developing solar power. [28] It is the same as a power purchase agreement, but is at a much higher rate. As the industry matures, it is reduced and becomes the same as a power purchase agreement. A feed-in tariff allows investors a guaranteed return on investment – a requirement for development. A primary difference between a tax credit and a feed-in tariff is that the cost is borne the year of installation with a tax credit, and is spread out over many years with a feed-in tariff. In both cases the incentive cost is distributed over all consumers. This means that the initial cost is very low for a feed-in tariff and very high for a tax credit. In both cases the learning curve reduces the cost of installation, but is not a large contribution to growth, as grid parity is still always reached. [29]
Since the end of the boom period, national PV market has since declined significantly, due to the amendments in the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) that reduced feed-in tariffs and set constraints on utility-scaled installations, limiting their size to no more than 10 kW. [30]
The previous version of the EEG only guaranteed financial assistance as long as the PV capacity had not yet reached 52 GW. This limit has now been removed. It also foresees to regulate annual PV growth within a range of 2.5 GW to 3.5 GW by adjusting the guaranteed fees accordingly. The legislative reforms stipulates a 40 to 45 per cent share from renewable energy sources by 2025 and a 55 to 60 per cent share by 2035. [31]
As of November 2016 [update] , tenants in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) will soon be able to benefit from the PV panels mounted on the buildings in which they live. The state government has introduced measures covering the self-consumption of power, allowing tenants to acquire the electricity generated onsite more cheaply than their regular utility contracts stipulate. [32] [33] [ needs update ]
Germany subsidizes the installation of solar capacity. [14] : 145
This section may be confusing or unclear to readers.(July 2014) |
In 2017, approximately 9 GW of photovoltaic plants in Germany were being retrofitted to shut down [34] if the frequency increases to 50.2 Hz, indicating an excess of electricity on the grid. The frequency is unlikely to reach 50.2 Hz during normal operation, but can if Germany is exporting power to countries that suddenly experience a power failure. This leads to a surplus of generation in Germany, that is transferred to rotating load and generation, which causes system frequency to rise. This happened in 2003 and 2006. [35] [36] [37]
However, power failures could not have been caused by photovoltaics in 2006, as solar PV played a negligible role in the German energy mix at that time. [38] In December 2012, the president of Germany's "Bundesnetzagentur", the Federal Network Agency, stated that there is "no indication", that the switch to renewables is causing more power outages. [39] Amory Lovins from the Rocky Mountain Institute wrote about the German Energiewende in 2013, calling the discussion about grid stability a "disinformation campaign". [40]
Germany has about the same solar potential as Alaska, which has an average of 3.08 sun hours/day in Fairbanks.[ citation needed ]
Bremen Sun Hours/day (Avg = 2.92 hrs/day)
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Stuttgart Sun Hours/day (Avg = 3.33 hrs/day)
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Source: NREL, based on an average of 30 years of weather data. [41]
The history of Germany's installed photovoltaic capacity, its average power output, produced electricity, and its share in the overall consumed electricity, showed a steady, exponential growth for more than two decades up to about 2012. [ dubious – discuss ] Solar PV capacity doubled on average every 18 months in this period; an annual growth rate of more than 50 per cent. Since about 2012 growth has slowed down significantly.
Year | Capacity (MW) | Net annual generation (GWh) | % of gross electricity consumption | Capacity Factor (%) |
---|---|---|---|---|
1990 | 2 | 1 | 2e-04 | 5.7 |
1991 | 2 | 1 | 2e-04 | 5.7 |
1992 | 6 | 4 | 7e-04 | 7.6 |
1993 | 9 | 3 | 6e-04 | 3.8 |
1994 | 12 | 7 | 0.001 | 6.7 |
1995 | 18 | 7 | 0.001 | 4.4 |
1996 | 28 | 12 | 0.002 | 4.9 |
1997 | 42 | 18 | 0.003 | 4.9 |
1998 | 54 | 35 | 0.006 | 7.4 |
1999 | 70 | 30 | 0.005 | 4.9 |
2000 | 114 | 60 | 0.01 | 6.0 |
2001 | 176 | 76 | 0.013 | 4.9 |
2002 | 296 | 162 | 0.028 | 6.2 |
2003 | 435 | 313 | 0.052 | 8.2 |
2004 | 1105 | 557 | 0.091 | 5.8 |
2005 | 2056 | 1282 | 0.21 | 7.1 |
2006 | 2899 | 2220 | 0.36 | 8.7 |
2007 | 4170 | 3075 | 0.49 | 8.4 |
2008 | 6120 | 4420 | 0.72 | 8.2 |
2009 | 10566 | 6583 | 1.13 | 7.1 |
2010 | 18006 | 11729 | 1.9 | 7.4 |
2011 | 25916 | 19599 | 3.23 | 8.6 |
2012 | 34077 | 26220 | 4.35 | 8.8 |
2013 | 36710 | 30020 | 5.13 | 9.6 |
2014 | 37900 | 34735 | 6.08 | 10.9 |
2015 | 39224 | 37330 | 6.5 | 11.3 |
2016 | 40679 | 36820 | 6.4 | 10.7 |
2017 | 42293 | 38001 | 6.6 | 10.6 |
2018 | 45158 | 43451 | 7.7 | 11.6 |
2019 | 48864 | 44334 | 8.2 | 11.1 |
2020 | 54403 | 48525 | 8.9 | 10.1 |
2021 | 60108 | 48373 | 8.7 | 9.1 |
2022 | 67399 | 59596 | 11.1 | 10.1 |
2023 | 83000 | 63576 | 12.4 |
Source: Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, for capacity figures [6] : 7 and other figures. [6] : 16–41
Note: This table does not show net consumption but gross electricity consumption, which includes self-consumption of nuclear and coal-fire power plants. In 2014, net consumption stood at about 6.9% (vs. 6.1% for gross consumption). [4] : 5
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Size band | % of total capacity | Notes |
---|---|---|
<10 kW | 14.2% | Single direct use systems, mostly residential solar pv systems |
10–100 kW | 38.2% | Systems used collectively within one place such as a large residential block or large commercial premise or intensive agricultural units |
100–500 kW | 14.1% | Typically larger commercial centres, hospitals, schools or industrial/agricultural premises or smaller ground mounted systems |
>500 kW | 33.5% | Mostly district power systems, ground-mounted panels providing power to perhaps a mix of industrial and commercial sites |
It is interesting to note that whilst large power plants receive a lot of attention in solar power articles, installations under 0.5 MW in size actually represented nearly two-thirds of the installed capacity in Germany in 2017.
10 – 50 Watts 50 – 100 Watts 100 – 200 Watts 200 – 350 Watts | 350 – 500 Watts 500 – 750 Watts >750 Watts |
Germany is made up of sixteen, partly sovereign federal states or Länder. The southern states of Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg account for about half of the total, nationwide PV deployment and are also the wealthiest and most populous states after North Rhine-Westphalia. However, photovoltaic installations are widespread throughout the sixteen states and are not limited to the southern region of the country as demonstrated by a watts per capita distribution.
State | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2023 (April) | W per capita (2023-4) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Baden-Württemberg | 1,245 | 1,772 | 2,907 | 3,753 | 5,838.0 | 6,111.8 | 4,984.5 | 5,117.0 | 8,809 | 791 |
Bavaria | 2,359 | 3,955 | 6,365 | 7,961 | 9,700.5 | 10,424.7 | 11,099.8 | 11,309.2 | 19,563 | 1,484 |
Berlin | 11 | 19 | 68 | 50 | 63.2 | 68.6 | 80.5 | 83.9 | 215 | 58 |
Brandenburg | 72 | 219 | 638 | 1,313 | 2,576.1 | 2,711.2 | 2,901.0 | 2,981.5 | 5,920 | 2,332 |
Bremen | 4 | 5 | 14 | 30 | 32.3 | 35.3 | 39.9 | 42.2 | 70 | 103 |
Hamburg | 7 | 9 | 27 | 25 | 32.1 | 35.8 | 36.5 | 36.9 | 90 | 48 |
Hesse | 350 | 549 | 868 | 1,174 | 1,520.9 | 1,661.8 | 1,768.5 | 1,811.2 | 3,201 | 508 |
Lower Saxony | 352 | 709 | 1,479 | 2,051 | 3,045.1 | 3,257.4 | 3,490.6 | 3,580.4 | 5,957 | 742 |
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern | 48 | 88 | 263 | 455 | 957.7 | 1,098.5 | 1,337.9 | 1,414.4 | 3,519 | 2,184 |
North Rhine-Westphalia | 617 | 1,046 | 1,925 | 2,601 | 3,582.0 | 3,878.5 | 4,234.9 | 4,363.7 | 8,113 | 452 |
Rhineland-Palatinate | 332 | 504 | 841 | 1,124 | 1,528.2 | 1,670.8 | 1,862.2 | 1,920.5 | 3,356 | 817 |
Saarland | 67 | 100 | 158 | 218 | 318.8 | 365.4 | 407.3 | 415.8 | 738 | 751 |
Saxony | 168 | 288 | 529 | 836 | 1,280.8 | 1,412.3 | 1,575.1 | 1,607.5 | 2,995 | 740 |
Saxony-Anhalt | 94 | 181 | 450 | 817 | 1,377.9 | 1,556.1 | 1,828.7 | 1,962.6 | 3,891 | 1,793 |
Schleswig-Holstein | 159 | 310 | 695 | 992 | 1,351.5 | 1,407.8 | 1,468.6 | 1,498.3 | 2,587 | 885 |
Thuringia | 95 | 159 | 327 | 467 | 871.7 | 1,013.9 | 1,119.9 | 1,187.4 | 2,226 | 1,055 |
Cumulative total installed | 5,979 | 9,913 | 17,554 | 23,866 | 34,076.7 | 36,710.1 | 38,236.0 | 39,332.4 | 71,259 | 856 |
Capacity added | — | 3,934 | 7,641 | 6,312 | 10,210.7 | 2,633.4 | 1,525.9 | 1,096.4 |
This section needs to be updated.(June 2023) |
Some companies have collapsed since 2008, facing harsh competition from imported solar panels. Some were taken over like Bosch Solar Energy by SolarWorld. Major German solar companies include:
Many countries and territories have installed significant solar power capacity into their electrical grids to supplement or provide an alternative to conventional energy sources. Solar power plants use one of two technologies:
Renewable energy in Germany is mainly based on wind and biomass, plus solar and hydro. Germany had the world's largest photovoltaic installed capacity until 2014, and as of 2023 it has over 82 GW. It is also the world's third country by installed total wind power capacity, 64 GW in 2021 and second for offshore wind, with over 7 GW. Germany has been called "the world's first major renewable energy economy".
Spain is one of the first countries to deploy large-scale solar photovoltaics, and is the world leader in concentrated solar power (CSP) production.
Solar power in India is an essential source of renewable energy and electricity generation in India. Since the early 2000s, India has increased its solar power significantly with the help of various government initiatives and rapid awareness about the importance of renewable energy and sustainability in the society. In order to decrease carbon dioxide emissions, reduce reliance on fossil fuels, with coal being the primary source of electricity for the nation at present, bolster employment, economy and make India energy independent by making self-reliant on renewable energy, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy was formed in 1982 to look after the country's activities to promote these goals. These collaborative efforts, along with global cooperation with the help of International Solar Alliance (ISA) since 2015 for promoting solar energy worldwide while also taking care of India, have made India one of the world's fastest adopters of solar power, making it the third-largest producer of solar power globally as of 2024, after China and the United States.
Financial incentives for photovoltaics are incentives offered to electricity consumers to install and operate solar-electric generating systems, also known as photovoltaics (PV).
Solar power has a small but growing role in electricity production in the United Kingdom.
A feed-in tariff is a policy mechanism designed to accelerate investment in renewable energy technologies by offering long-term contracts to renewable energy producers. This means promising renewable energy producers an above-market price and providing price certainty and long-term contracts that help finance renewable energy investments. Typically, FITs award different prices to different sources of renewable energy in order to encourage the development of one technology over another. For example, technologies such as wind power and solar PV are awarded a higher price per kWh than tidal power. FITs often include a "digression": a gradual decrease of the price or tariff in order to follow and encourage technological cost reductions.
Feed-in electricity tariffs (FiT) were introduced in Germany to encourage the use of new energy technologies such as wind power, biomass, hydropower, geothermal power and solar photovoltaics. Feed-in tariffs are a policy mechanism designed to accelerate investment in renewable energy technologies by providing them remuneration above the retail or wholesale rates of electricity. The mechanism provides long-term security to renewable energy producers, typically based on the cost of generation of each technology. Technologies such as wind power, for instance, are awarded a lower per-kWh price, while technologies such as solar PV and tidal power are offered a higher price, reflecting higher costs.
Solar power includes solar farms as well as local distributed generation, mostly on rooftops and increasingly from community solar arrays. In 2023, utility-scale solar power generated 164.5 terawatt-hours (TWh), or 3.9% of electricity in the United States. Total solar generation that year, including estimated small-scale photovoltaic generation, was 238 TWh.
A photovoltaic system, also called a PV system or solar power system, is an electric power system designed to supply usable solar power by means of photovoltaics. It consists of an arrangement of several components, including solar panels to absorb and convert sunlight into electricity, a solar inverter to convert the output from direct to alternating current, as well as mounting, cabling, and other electrical accessories to set up a working system. Many utility-scale PV systems use tracking systems that follow the sun's daily path across the sky to generate more electricity than fixed-mounted systems.
Solar power in Japan has been expanding since the late 1990s. The country is a major manufacturer and exporter of photovoltaics (PV) and a large installer of domestic PV systems, with most of them grid connected.
Between 1992 and 2023, the worldwide usage of photovoltaics (PV) increased exponentially. During this period, it evolved from a niche market of small-scale applications to a mainstream electricity source. From 2016-2022 it has seen an annual capacity and production growth rate of around 26%- doubling approximately every three years.
The Renewable Energy Sources Act or EEG is a series of German laws that originally provided a feed-in tariff (FIT) scheme to encourage the generation of renewable electricity. The EEG 2014 specified the transition to an auction system for most technologies which has been finished with the current version EEG 2017.
Different methods of electricity generation can incur a variety of different costs, which can be divided into three general categories: 1) wholesale costs, or all costs paid by utilities associated with acquiring and distributing electricity to consumers, 2) retail costs paid by consumers, and 3) external costs, or externalities, imposed on society.
Solar power in Greece has been driven by a combination of government incentives and equipment cost reductions. The installation boom started in the late 2000s with feed-in tariffs has evolved into a market featuring auctions, power purchase agreements, and self-generation. The country's relatively high level of solar insolation is an advantage boosting the effectiveness of solar panels; within Europe, Greece receives 50% more solar irradiation than Germany.
Germany's electrical grid is part of the Synchronous grid of Continental Europe. In 2020, due to COVID-19 conditions and strong winds, Germany produced 484 TW⋅h of electricity of which over 50% was from renewable energy sources, 24% from coal, and 12% from natural gas, this amounting to 36% from fossil fuel. This is the first year renewables represented more than 50% of the total electricity production and a major change from 2018, when a full 38% was from coal, only 40% was from renewable energy sources, and 8% was from natural gas.
Solar power is an important contributor to electricity generation in Italy, accounting for 11.8% of total generation in 2023, up from 0.6% in 2010 and less than 0.1% in 2000.
A photovoltaic power station, also known as a solar park, solar farm, or solar power plant, is a large-scale grid-connected photovoltaic power system designed for the supply of merchant power. They are different from most building-mounted and other decentralized solar power because they supply power at the utility level, rather than to a local user or users. Utility-scale solar is sometimes used to describe this type of project.
Solar power in France including overseas territories reached an installed capacity figure of 11.2 GW in 2020, and rose further to 17.1 GW at the end of 2022. Government plans announced in 2022 foresee solar PV capacity in France rising to 100 GW by 2050.
Solar power in Switzerland has demonstrated consistent capacity growth since the early 2010s, influenced by government subsidy mechanisms such as the implementation of the feed-in tariff in 2009 and the enactment of the revised Energy Act in 2018. By the end of 2023, solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity had reached 6.4 GW, a notable increase from the 0.1 GW recorded in 2010. Concurrently, the share of solar power in electricity generation has also increased, climbing from 0.1% in 2010 to 5.9% in 2023.
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