Germany added 2.72 GW of PV in eight months

From pv magazine Germany.

Germany’s Federal Network Agency (the Bundesnetzagentur) has reported 327.1 MW of PV generation capacity was connected to the grid in August.

The activity extended the recent upward trend in monthly new builds – around 241 MW of capacity was added in May, 270 MW in June and 310 MW in July. In the first eight months of the year, newly installed PV capacity topped out at 2.72 GW, the Bundesnetzagentur reported.

Of the new capacity deployed in August, a good 235 MW was represented by rooftop installations and 18.6 MW by ground-mounted plants built outside the national tendering scheme. A further 928 kW of solar systems were registered under the tenant electricity scheme

This month the FIT for solar systems with a generation capacity no larger than 750 kW will fall another 1.4%. In the ‘direct marketing’ system category – mandatory for arrays with a generation capacity above 100 kW – the FIT payment is €0.0742/kWh.

For 40-750 kW roof systems the FIT will be €0.0818/kWh, for up-to-10 kW systems the payment will be €0.1058/kWh. All 10-40 kW arrays will receive €0.1030/kWh.

According to the Bundesnetzagentur, Germany reached a cumulative solar capacity of around 48.65 GW by the end of August, just 3.35 GW short of the long-standing 52 GW cap which was set to halt incentives but which the German government has pledged to remove under its new Climate Change Act.