With the ruling coalition having agreed to extend additional tenders for PV and wind power, a related, draft bill by the Federal Ministry of Economics has been disclosed. The policy document includes a proposal for a 20% FIT reduction for solar installations ranging in size from 40 kW to 750 kW.

The new capacity figure fell on the previous month, mainly because fewer ground-mounted systems went online. The monthly retreat of FIT payments will stay at 1% for the next three months. According to SolarPower Europe, Germany will be by far the largest market in Europe, with 3 GW of new capacity this year.

The German PV equipment manufacturer has signed two letters of intent (LoI) for joint ventures with companies from Saudi Arabia at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) Forum. The company declined to comment on the current political situation.

The final average price was slightly higher than that of the previous auction of the same kind. Successful bids were between €0.0386/kWh and €0.0515/kWh per kWh. Unlike the parallel wind energy tender, the tendered capacity was significantly oversubscribed, once again.

Analysts at Taiwan-based EnergyTrend and China’s PV Infolink have reported a further increase in demand for monocrystalline solar cells and modules in recent days. Their respective analyses on multi-crystalline products, however, do not match.

The project, under development by Gasunie, Tennet and Thyssengas, will convert wind power into green hydrogen. The plant commissioning should take place gradually starting from 2022.

The Munich-based company will receive up to €2 million for a large-scale storage facility in southern Germany. The system will consist of 52 lithium-ion car batteries –which are also used in the BMW i3 – and will be coupled with a wind farm.

There may be a much-vaunted ‘solar renaissance’ in the offing for Europe, but it hasn’t come quickly enough for the Swiss PV equipment supplier, which wants to handle most of its sales and services from China.

It is the second decline in a row. Germany’s TSOs base their calculations on the 6 GW expansion for solar and wind expected for the coming year. The surplus on the EEG account, which was included in the calculations, was €3.65 billion.

Marking a historic moment in the German renewable energy sector, no public incentive was paid in August for PV installations up to 10 MW and selected under the country’s tender mechanism. This was due to the fact that market prices were higher than the price including the feed-in premium tariff, awarded in the tender.