Power generation from PV grew by 13% in Germany this year

From January to September 2018, PV and wind energy plants, together, generated around 13% more renewable electricity than in the first nine months of the previous year – a total of 110.3 TWh – reports Germany's IWR, citing provisional figures from the transmission system operators.

While onshore and offshore wind power rose by 12.7% to 73.5 TWh in the first nine months of the year, PV systems produced 36.8 TWh, which is up 13% from the same period last year.

According to IWR, PV was mainly supported by the above-average number of hours of sunshine in the months from April to September. As for wind energy, the increase in production was due to the wind-rich weather, especially in the first quarter.

In addition, a strong contribution was given by the wind energy plants built in 2017, which started to inject power into the grid at the beginning of this year. According to IWR, the offshore wind farms in the German North Sea and Baltic Sea generated around 12.7 TWh of electricity in the first nine months of 2018, which is around 10% more than in the same period of the previous year.

That this year is going to become one of the best years ever in terms of solar power production had been showed also by previous figures released by German Solar Industry Association, BSW-Solar. So far this year, installed solar capacity has grown by around 2 GW.