Germany adds 150 MW of solar in October

In October, Germany Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) registered new photovoltaic systems with a total capacity of 148.9 MW. Of this amount, 39.4 MW comes from 15 ground-mounted PV plants, of which some were awarded in tenders for large-scale solar and some are for installations of up to 750 kW. The remaining capacity, around 109.4 MW, is represented by 6,141 smaller projects mostly rooftop PV installations.

In the first 10 months of 2017, around 1,460 MW of new PV systems were registered in Germany. If this growth trend continues, the 2.5 GW corridor set as a target by the German government will once again fall short this year. However, the newly installed capacity in 2017 will probably be higher than the two previous years, when it reached around 1,500 MW annually each time. Meanwhile, the country’s cumulative installed PV power base has increased to 42.7 GW, as of the end of October 2017.

In the meantime, the EU Commission has given the green light for Germany’s new regulation for tenant’s solar power supply. Projects selected under this scheme, however, are recorded separately by the Bundesnetzagentur since the law was published at the end of July. In October, five new registrations were added. Since July, 24 PVsystems for the supply of tenants with a total output of 464.9 kilowatts have been registered with the Bonn-based authority.

Solar subsidies will remain stable in December and will not increase in January. Depending on the size of the roof system, the FIT is 10.61 to 12.20 € cents/kWh. For solar power systems exceeding 100 kW, the FIT will be 8.44 € cent/kWh. For direct marketing, which is mandatory for all PV systems with a capacity of more than 100 KW, tariffs will range between 8.84 and 12.60 € cents/kWh, depending on the size of the plants.