Germany registers almost 200 MW of solar in May

In May, new solar PV systems with a total output of 194.3 MW were registered by Germany’s Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur). This capacity includes ground-mounted PV plants with a total power of 37.4 MW, it reports.

The rooftop segment continues to drive the German solar market, although the amount of new additions for May, in which a total of 6,570 rooftop PV systems worth 156.8 MW were registered, remains behind the capacity registered from January and April.

As for the tenants’ solar power supply scheme, 17 projects were reported to the Federal Network Agency in May. These have a total output of just 648 kW, with only three installations going into operation in that month. The total number of systems, whose solar power is remunerated with the tenant electricity subsidy, rose to 125 by the end of May. These plants have a total output of just under 3.3 MW.

In the register of solar parks, a total of 24 new ground-mounted solar plants has been recorded in May. Most of these facilities are ground-mounted systems up to 750 kW. Only about 15 MW of the total of almost 37.5 MW of power was therefore attributable to facilities that have been awarded in Germany’s tenders for PV projects not exceeding 10 MW in size.

In the first five months of the year, according to the figures from the Federal Network Agency, new PV additions amounted to around 1,000 megawatts in Germany. By the end of May, the cumulative output of PV systems installed in the country, which are funded by the renewable energy law, the EEG, increased to 43,981 MW.

The level of FITs for PV roof systems and the revenue cap for direct marketing, which is mandatory for systems with a capacity of more than 100 kW, have remained unchanged for a year now. The feed-in tariffs are currently between 10.61 and 12.20 euro cents per kilowatt-hour, depending on the size of the system.

For other facilities, it is 8.44 cents per kilowatt hour. In the case of direct marketing, the value to be applied continues to be between 8.84 and 12.60 cents per kilowatt hour. At the end of July, the Federal Network Agency will publish the rates for the next three months.