The solar power industry had already won this race: While other sectors were still recovering from their New Year’s Eve hangover, the Federal Solar Industry Association was already pushing forward with a success story. The association announced that “more than a million new solar systems” would be installed in Germany in 2023, “more than ever before”. According to industry representatives, a total of solar power systems with a peak output of 14 gigawatts were put into operation, 85 percent more, almost twice as much as in the previous year.
In fact, the solar boom is a reality. The federal government’s original expansion goals for 2023 were significantly exceeded. The 14 gigawatts of output achieved are significantly higher than the nine gigawatts targeted by the federal government. According to calculations by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, June 2023 was the month with the highest solar power generation ever achieved.
However, the detailed figures offer a much more differentiated picture. Half of the newly installed solar power output was at home, i.e. private homeowners who had photovoltaics installed on their roofs. The so-called balcony power plants were also particularly popular, of which 270,000 were newly commissioned, but they hardly play a role in the total installed capacity.
However, the drivers that were ultimately decisive for the change – large-scale solar parks on the ground and systems on commercial roofs – also increased, but only accounted for a smaller share of the increase. The federal government’s campaign for more solar power is only having a limited impact here. That could change if a solar requirement for new commercial buildings is introduced in a growing number of federal states in the next two years.
With regard to net electricity generation in Germany, i.e. what is actually available to the end consumer, renewable energies reached a record overall. According to calculations by the Fraunhofer experts, they achieved a share of 59.7 percent in 2023, ten percentage points more than in the previous peak year of 2020. While production from lignite and hard coal fell sharply, the overall lower electricity demand also contributed to this Sun and wind were able to expand their market share. Curiously, 2023 was actually not a good sunny year: the rainy summer and equally wet autumn resulted in fewer productive hours than in previous years – despite the newly added capacity.
The Fraunhofer report also makes it clear where the energy transition in Germany is currently lacking the most: wind energy. The federal government actually wants to ensure that up to ten gigawatts of power are added on land every year. For 2023, the slogan was still in effect at the beginning of December that it would be possible to increase the expansion “to four gigawatts”. The result, however, is pitiful in comparison: only 2.7 gigawatts were added last year. In the offshore area at sea, expansion was even slower due to complicated tenders and long construction times: only 0.23 gigawatts instead of the targeted 0.7 gigawatts. “The expansion of wind energy continues to lag behind plan,” say the Fraunhofer experts.
The big question is whether this will change substantially in the current year. The federal government refers to its “onshore wind law”, which is intended to simplify the approval process, but which has not yet led to a jump in wind farms that are newly connected to the grid. However, there is a positive development in the number of new permits – this is likely to be reflected in higher construction figures in the near future. In the offshore sector, individual parks currently under construction are likely to come online, but this will not lead to a really big leap. In 2023, companies paid over 13 billion euros in a bidding process to build four wind farms in the North and Baltic Seas. However, by the time they come online, another federal government will probably already be in office.
Note: This article first appeared on “Capital”.
