Wind, solar and other renewables cover 54% of Germany’s power consumption in early 2022
Clean Energy Wire
Renewable power installations covered more than half of Germany’s power consumption in the first two months of 2022. Figures released by energy industry association BDEW and the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Wurttemberg (ZSW) showed that wind turbines, solar panels and other renewables contributed 54 percent of power consumption in January and February. These installations produced about 25 percent more electricity than in the same period one year before. “The increase is mainly due to favourable weather conditions for power production with wind and sunshine,” BDEW and ZSW said. With an output of 20.6 billion kilowatt hours (kWh), February 2022 also ended up being a new record month for wind power production in the country. In that month alone, renewables even covered 62 percent of total electricity consumption.
However, the high renewables output “should not conceal the fact that the expansion of renewable power sources is happening much too slow”, said BDEW head Kerstin Andreae. She added that the war in Ukraine had highlighted the need for more energy autonomy, urging the government to make sure that licensing procedures are carried out faster and other hurdles for renewables expansion are removed.
