Weak winds eat up generation capacity gains in Germany’s renewable fleet in early 2025
Clean Energy Wire
Unfavourable weather conditions led to a decrease of renewable energy generation in Germany at the start of the year, outweighing a growth in renewable capacity, figures released by energy industry association BDEW and research institute ZSW have shown. With an output of roughly 63.5 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) between January and the end of March, renewables produced about 16 percent less electricity than in the first quarter of 2024. Overall, renewables covered 47 percent of Germany's power consumption in the first quarter of 2025.
“The decrease is due to weather conditions,” BDEW said, explaining that weak winds in February and March had a particularly strong effect on the drop in output of wind turbines on land and at sea. Onshore turbine output fell by 22 percent and offshore turbine output by 31 percent, the figures showed. The turbine fleet’s total output was 33.3 billion kWh, 14 billion kWh less than in early 2024 but still covering about a quarter of total gross electricity consumption. Since April last year, 872 new turbines with a combined capacity of over four gigawatts were added across the country. “With similar weather conditions, power generation from wind would have grown significantly,” BDEW added.
Dry weather conditions also meant that output from hydropower facilities dropped by more than a quarter to 4.2 billion kWh. Hydropower had a particularly productive period in early 2024, when Germany experienced unusually strong rainfall in winter and spring. By contrast, the output of solar PV installations grew during the same period. A fast expansion of production capacity and sunny weather increased power production by a third to attain a share of ten percent of power consumption.
“Power production from renewables changes with the weather. To guarantee supply security and to use the price-lowering potential of peak feed-in periods, we need to flank renewables expansion with more storage, more flexibility and steerable hydrogen-ready gas power plants,” said BDEW head Kerstin Andreae.
