Germany has installed 7.5GW of solar PV capacity in the first six months of 2024, according to the German Federal Network Agency, Bundesnetzagentur.
The figures are a slight increase from the same period in 2023, when Germany added nearly 7GW of solar PV capacity. With the 7.5GW of capacity added in H1 2024, Germany has installed over 90GW of total solar capacity. The country doubled its installed capacity in less than six years. At the end of 2018, the total installed capacity sat at 45.2GW.
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Among the most notable projects that reached commercial operation during H1 2024 was Europe’s largest solar park. Solar developer Move On Energy started commercial operations of its 650MW solar PV park, the Witznitz Energy Park in Leipzing.
Germany aims to install 215GW of solar PV capacity by 2030, the most ambitious solar target among the European Union member states.
The European country started the year with a record solar PV installation of 5GW between January and April, as covered recently on PV Tech. However, the chart below shows that capacity additions for May and June have been lower than in 2023.
Since March 2023, Germany has consistently added over 1GW of solar PV capacity per month, and being the fastest renewable energy capacity added, by far.
Per region, Bavaria added the most solar PV capacity in H1 2024 with 1.7GW, followed by Baden-Württemberg and North Rhine-Westphalia, with more than 1GW each. These are the only regions with more than 1GW installed capacity as of the end of June 2024.
Oversubscribed auctions
During H1 2024, Germany passed a legislation, Solar Package I, which brought changes at the utility-scale level and for distributed solar for public tenders, among others. Tenders that have continuously been oversubscribed this year, both for rooftop solar and ground-mounted auctions. The ground-mounted auction, held in March this year, ended with nearly double the capacity submitted than the awarded, with 4.1GW and 2.2GW, respectively.
Only its most recent auction, the Innovation Auction, which seeks solar-plus-storage capacity, did not end up being oversubscribed. Despite that, the tender awarded 512MW of solar-plus-storage capacity earlier this month.
