German solar plant owners lavished with power from the sun

The exceptionally sunny weather in Germany has brought solar plant owners an unusually high yield of power from the sun, energy company E.ON says in a press release. Between May and July, the German Meteorological Service (DWD) registered 817 hours of sunshine, 156 more than in the same period one year before. The increase was even greater in certain individual regions, E.ON says. In the northern federal state of Schleswig-Holstein, 909 hours of sunshine meant the sun was out 275 hours longer than in 2017, while in Berlin the increase was 213 hours. Germany’s 1.6 million solar power installations produced 17.4 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity in the three months up to the end of July, two billion kWh more than in the year before.

Find the press release in German here.

See the CLEW article Germany’s power system weathers heat wave despite fossil plant curbs and the factsheet Volatile but predictable: forecasting renewable power production for more information.