Germany breaches 52 GW mark with 409 MW of new solar in August

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From pv magazine Germany.

Germany has finally passed the 52 GW of total solar capacity which, until recently, would have halted feed-in tariff (FIT) payments for new systems with a generation capacity of up to 750 kW.

The projects connected in August brought 409.2 MW of new solar generation capacity, enough to take the national total-to-date to 52.2 GW.

The lifting of the FIT cap, pledged by German chancellor Angela Merkel in September 2019 but only enacted into law in July, is thought to have influenced a downward trend observed in August for smaller solar systems, with developers of rooftop PV not being urged to deploy their projects before the cap was reached.

The volume of systems installed outside the national tender scheme fell in August, to account for 298.4 MW of arrays. Only February, with 288 MW of non-tender systems connected, has returned a lower figure this year. The rising figure of tender-related systems was also reflected in the fact just 13.2 MW of ground-mounted, up-to-750 kW systems was added in August – the weakest value this year.

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Just shy of 100 MW worth of tender-driven, bigger-than-750 kW ground-mounted projects were added in August as federal network agency the Bundesnetzagentur announced a monthly figure higher than the 327.1 MW added in August last year but down from the 446 MW reported in July.

The year-to-date figure was also up by comparison, with the 3.2 GW added in the first eight months of this year higher than the 2.72 GW returned in January-to-August 2019.

The largest project added in August had a generation capacity of a little under 10 MW, the largest scale permissible under the tender program.

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