IWR: Renewable Surcharge to Increase Despite Fewer PV and Wind Power Input in First Three Quarters of 2013

Published on October 8, 2013 in Electricity, Renewable, Solar and Wind. 8 Comments Tags: , .

PV and wind power input into the German grids in the first three quarters of 2013 was 2.1 % lower than in the same perioad last year, IWR – Internationales Wirtschaftsforum Regenerative Energien IWR  (Renewable Energy Industry Institute, Münster) deduced from data provided by the energy exchange EEX. Yet the renewable surcharge for consumers is likely to rise by 15% (as of next year) IWR pointed out.

In total wind power and PV delivered 56.2 billion kWh in the first nine months of the year. Wind power input decreased by 8.4% to 29.9 billion kWh due to lower wind yields at the beginning of the year, whereas the wind power input of 3.4 billion kWh in September exceeded the input in September 2012 by 12.4%. In contrast, PV input grew by 6.2% to 26.2 billion kWh in the first three quarters of 2013. In September, however, PV contributed 9.04% less than in September 2012, IWR said.

At the same time electricity prices for industrial and other large electricity consumers continued to fall in September 2013, IWR pointed out referring to EEX data. Base load power cost on average 4.17 ct/kWh, a decrease of 6.6% compared with last year. For the whole first nine months the average price even fell by 12% to 3.79 ct/kWh.

While EEX prices fall, the renewable surcharge for consumers is likely to rise by 15% IWR said. Currently the so-called EEG surcharge amounts to 5.277 ct/kWh. A 15% increase would mean a rise to 6.01% ct/kWh. This would be at the lower bottom of the range of expectations voiced for the increase of the EEG surcharge for 2014, which will be announced on 15 October 2013 by the transmission system operators (TSOs).

With the renewables surcharge pursuant to the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), the EEG surcharge (EEG Umlage), consumers pay for the difference between the fixed feed-in tariffs paid pursuant to EEG for renewable energy fed into the grids and the sale of the renewable energy at the EPEX Spot power exchange by the TSOs. As renewable energy enjoys priority in the German grids, a growing amount of green energy has to be sold by the TSOs, also at times when demand is low, driving down prices.

Source: IWR

 

 

by Mutthias Leng

8 Responses to “IWR: Renewable Surcharge to Increase Despite Fewer PV and Wind Power Input in First Three Quarters of 2013”

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  • jmdesp
    October 9, 2013 at 18:05

    Since the subsidies for solar are much higher on average than the one for wind, a mix where the quantity generated is about equal but the part of solar has grown, just by itself leads to a higher renewable surcharge, even if the market price had been constant.

    Actually given than the price lowered 6.6% to 4.17 ct, this factor alone would only result in a 0.27 increase to the charge, whilst the number you gives is about 0.8 ct of increase. So most of the increase comes from the change in distribution between Solar and Wind, more than from the lower market price.

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