Germany registers 117 MW of new PV installations in January

In the first month of this year, Germany registered new PV installations totaling 111 MW, according to the latest statistics released by German grid-operator Bundesnetzagentur. This capacity, however, includes 446 PV systems totaling 75 MW which came online in December 2016 and other 15 MW which came online before December or after January.

Due to this registration schedule, the real new capacity installed in January was of only 27.4 MW, a result not exactly in line with the development registered in the previous months. This was probably due to the fact that many developers, which had completed their projects in January, have decided to connect their systems to the grid later in February, expecting a 1.5% FIT raise which will never materlialised, due to the high volumes registered in December. The level of the FIT incentive for the first quarter of the year in Germany is set by the Bundesnetzagentur depending on the development volume in the second half of the previous year.

Compared to the last month of 2016, when around 450 MW of new installations were connected to the grid, January’s result may seem disappointing. December’s growth, however, was mainly due to the effect of the expiration of Germany’s renewable energy law (EEG) at the end of the year and the entry into force of the new renewable energy regulation, the EEG 2017.

At the end of January 2017, Germany had reached a cumulative installed PV capacity of 41.34 GW. In 2016, the country added approximately 1.52 GW of new solar power.