Germany’s solar, wind generation hits high in October

Germany's solar and wind power plants achieved a new record in October, with generation hitting a monthly high of 14.6 billion kWh, according to German research institute IWR, citing data from transparency platform Entso-e. Wind and solar power generation almost doubled compared to the same month last year. The previous record was set in March of this year, with monthly generation hitting 12.5 billion kWh.

The IWR pointed to a number of factors behind the new record, including higher production from wind farms under favorable weather conditions. For example, the autumn storm “Herwart,” which caused severe damage in Germany, has led to a new performance record in wind energy. On October 28, German wind turbines generated 39,200 MW of electricity from 7:00 pm to 8:00 pm. In early October, the storm “Xavier” was also responsible for higher wind generation. The wind turbines produced a total of 12.5 billion kWh of electricity in October, of which 2.2 billion kWh came from offshore facilities. The previous record month, December 2015, has been surpassed, according the IWR. Compared with the previous month, wind power production almost doubled.

But PV also contributed to the record numbers, generating about 27% more electricity than a year ago, at 2.1 billion kWh. Compared to September, however, solar generation declined by almost a third. For its surveys, the IWR evaluates data at the entry point into the power grid. The actual power generation in the later annual accounts could be even higher, especially because the self-consumption of photovoltaic systems is initially only estimated.

After evaluating the net production of the power plants of the Energy Charts installed at the Fraunhofer ISE in Germany, wind power came to 12.61 billion kilowatt hours. According to Bruno Burger's analysis, the photovoltaic systems generated 2.32 billion kilowatt hours in October. This corresponds to 26.8% and 5% of electricity generation in Germany for the month, respectively. Overall, the share of renewable energy was at a new record level of 44.1%. According to the Energy Charts, which analyzes data from transmission system operators, Destatis and the EEX electricity exchange, renewable energy plants generated a total of 20.7 billion kilowatt hours of electricity in October.