German PV Installations Pick up Slightly: 105.966 MWp Installed in November 2014, 38,128 MWp in Total, 0.25 Monthly Reduction

Published on January 5, 2015 in Electricity, Renewable and Solar. 11 Comments Tags: , , , .

After a record low of 75.431 MWp in October 2014, November 2014 saw 105.966 MWp of new PV capacity, leading to 38,128 MWp of solar capacity in total that was eligible for support under the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) at the end of the month, the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) informed.

1. New PV Installations

Compared with November 2013 (218,751 MWp) installations were down 51.56%. This is less than the 67% decline in October 2014 and the 62.57% decline in September 2014. In the three solar boom years 2010 to 2012 435,275 MWp were installed in November 2012 and 659.259 MWp respectively 365.448 MWp in November 2011 and 2010. While solar PV growth in 2013 and at the beginning of 2014 was already considerably slower than in these boom years, the amendment of the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) that entered into force on 1 August 2014 has slowed down solar growth further (for more information on the changes the EEG 2014 brought, please see here).

Based on the information published by BNetzA (please note that figures may subsequently be, and have repeatedly been, corrected upon new information without leading to a new publication of the monthly figures), the November 2014 capacity additions lead to the following table of German PV capacity eligible for financial support pursuant to the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG).

Year Month MWp MWp
Total solar capacity by end of 2009 10,566
Total solar capacity in the period of 1 January 2010 to 30 November 2014 27.562
01/2014 192.974*
02/2014 110.341*
03/2014 155.712*
04/2014 162.773*
05/2014 203.669*
06/2014 188.156*
07/2014 342.307*
08/2014 140.002*
09/2014 109.841*
10/2014 75.395*
11/2014 105.966
Installed 11/2014 1,787.138
Installed last 12 months 1,952.807
Total solar capacity by 30 November 2014 38.128

* corrected figures

2. New Feed-in Tariffs/Market Premiums

The remuneration (feed-in tariff or market premium) is reduced monthly for new PV plants, depending on additionally installed capacity. Under the EEG 2014 newly commissioned renewable power plants are only eligible for fixed feed-in tariffs if they are small plants in the sense of Section 37 EEG 2014 (i.e. plants up to 500 kWp in 2015 and up to 100 kWp as of 2016). Power generated by all other renewable power plants has to be sold directly by the operator who can claim a market premium (cf. Section 34 EEG 2014).

As PV capacity growth was below the target corridor of between 2,400 and 2,600 MWp per year, the monthly reduction of applicable market premiums/feed-in tariffs has again been reduced to 0.25% instead of the regular monthly degression of 0.5% (Sec. 31 EEG 2014) for the first three months of 2015:

Solar Feed-in Tariffs
Small Installations up to 500 kWp
§ 51(2) EEG 2014 (Roofs/Noise Walls) § 51(1) EEG 2014 (Other)
up to 10 KWp up to 40 kWp up to 500 kWp up to 500 kWp
Start of Operations
from 01.01.2015 (0.25% degression) 12.56 12.22 10.92 8.70
from 01.02.2015 (0.25% degression) 12.53 12.18 10.90 8.68
from 01.03.2015 (0.25% degression) 12.50 12.15 10.87 8.65

 

Solar Market Premium
Compulsory from 500 kWp
§ 51(2) EEG 2014 (Roofs/Noise Walls) § 51(1) EEG 2014 (Other)
up to 10 KWp up to 40 kWp up to 1 MWp up to 10 MWp up to 10 MWp
Start of Operations
from 01.01.2015 (0.25% degression) 12.95 12.61 11.32 9.09 9.09
from 01.02.2015 (0.25% degression) 12.92 12.58 11.29 9.07 9.07
from 01.03.2015 (0.25% degression) 12.89 12.55 11.26 9.05 9.05

Details on the calculation for the remuneration for January to March 2015 can be found here (in German).

Related posts:

by Mutthias Leng and Annute Leng

11 Responses to “German PV Installations Pick up Slightly: 105.966 MWp Installed in November 2014, 38,128 MWp in Total, 0.25 Monthly Reduction”

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  • Jarmo
    January 5, 2015 at 18:23

    “Installed 11/2014 1,952.807 MW”

    Strange. Calculated all the installations in 2014 given in the post above and the total was below 1800 MW.

    Your previous post on the topic gave this number:

    “Installed 10/2014 1,682.997 ”
    http://germanenergyblog.de/?p=17440

    1683 MW + 105 MW = 1788 MW ??

  • Mutthias Leng
    January 5, 2015 at 20:19

    Thanks, Jarmo – one line got lost during the update. The correct figure for the first 11 months of 2014 is 1,787,138 kWp. For the last 12 months (i.e. including December 2013), the total was 1,952,807 kWp, which meant a 0.25% monthly reduction for January/February/March 2015 (Section 31 para. 4 no. 1 EEG 2014). Have amended the table accordingly.

  • Shuwei
    January 5, 2015 at 20:35

    The FIP+market price is quite higher than the FIT? Is this understanding right??

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