Germany's solar power expansion reaches 8-year-high in 2020, adding nearly 5 GW
pv magazine / Clean Energy Wire
New photovoltaic capacity in Germany reached nearly five gigawatts (GW) last year, up nearly one GW from 2019, Sandra Enkhardt writes in pv magazine citing data from the country’s Federal Network Agency. Added PV capacity in 2020 reached 4.8 GW, the highest figure since 2012, according to data by research institute Fraunhofer ISE. Some 184,000 new solar power systems were installed last year, according to the German Solar Association. Rooftop PV systems in particular sold strongly in December, Enkhardt writes. For the year as a whole, around 3.9 GW of added capacity were attributable to PV plants built outside of the tender system, according to the Federal Network Agency. Solar subsidies in Germany are set to drop by a further 1.4 percent in February.
In March, the fixed feed-in tariff for small rooftop systems will fall below eight cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) for the first time. “Never before have more solar power systems been installed on private roofs,” the German Solar Association (BSW) said in an e-mailed statement. It attributed the solar boom to “significantly increased environmental awareness, the striving of many consumers for more independence, significantly lower solar technology prices and an increasing switch to electric mobility.”
