211 MW Of New Solar Photovoltaic Capacity Added In Germany In February

April 3rd, 2013 by James Ayre

Reposted from Solar Love with permission:

211 MW of new solar photovoltaic capacity were installed in Germany in February. The new capacity was spread out amongst more than 8,300 different systems, the largest of which was a new solar park in Brandenburg with a total capacity of 8.2 MW.

The exact figures, released by the German Federal Network Agency, are 211.215 MW of new installed capacity, across 8,375 systems. The new capacity includes more than 23 solar parks over 1 MW in size.

Germany solar power plant installation. Image Credit: Windwärts Energie GmbH (some rights reserved)

PV Magazine adds some commentary on Germany’s feed-in tariffs:

Photovoltaic feed-in tariffs declined in April to between €0.1101/kWh and €0.1592/kWh, depending on the system size. A year ago, FITs were reduced to €0.1350/kWh for solar farms and rooftop installations between 1 and 10 MW in size. Meanwhile, for smaller rooftop systems, tariffs were lowered to between €0.1650 to €0.1959/kWh.

Now, the Federal Network Agency must decide on the next round of photovoltaic tariffs, for the next 3 months, by the end of April. To calculate the new rates, the agency must multiply by 4 the capacity additions from the last 3 months.

The data for January, released by the Federal Network Agency last month, stated that 274.67 MW of new capacity were installed across 9,300 systems during that month. So, when combined with February’s installations, a total of 485 MW of new capacity were installed in the first two months of 2013. So, in order for tariffs to fall by more than 1% during the next round, March would have had to have seen the installation of at least 400 MW of new capacity.

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Tags: 211 MW new solar Germany February, Brandenburg solar photovoltaic, feed in tariffs solar Germany, German Federal Network Agency, Germany, Germany Solar, germany solar energy, Germany solar photovoltaic new capacity February, no post

About the Author

James Ayre 's background is predominantly in geopolitics and history, but he has an obsessive interest in pretty much everything. After an early life spent in the Imperial Free City of Dortmund, James followed the river Ruhr to Cofbuokheim, where he attended the University of Astnide. And where he also briefly considered entering the coal mining business. He currently writes for a living, on a broad variety of subjects, ranging from science, to politics, to military history, to renewable energy. You can follow his work on Google+.

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This article: http://cleantechnica.com/2013/04/02/citigroup-solar-modules-could-fall-to-25-centswatt-by-2020/ states:

“The Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics, suggests that the starting point is higher than most current estimates, and predicts solar PV will not fall much below $140/MWh by 2020, and then make little progress over the following decade.”

Current exchange rate €/AU$ is 1.23. AU$ 140/MWh = 114 €/MWh = 0.114€/kWh.

So the German feed-in tariff for large scale solar installations is now (April 2013) below what “The Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics” sets as the lower bound for 2020. In Australia (at least 1.5x insolation of Germany).

We still have to see if any installations will apply for that tariff, but we can already conclude that the prediction of “The Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics,” is at least questionable. Or did I miss something?
James Wimberley

It looks as if Altmeier and Rösler are achieving their goal of halting Germany’s solar boom not so much by FIT cuts, which were always built in to the EEG, but by creating a grey cloud of US-style policy uncertainty. Germans can’t be sure any longer that FIT promises will be honoured.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Jouni-Valkonen/736198505 Jouni Valkonen
  
  FIT does not suit very well for roof-top solar, because the point of roof-top solar is to reduce the dependency on expensive grid electricity. It would be better to subsidize directly the installation costs of roof-top solar panels and battery storage.
  - ThomasGerke
    
    Feed in Tarifs were thought up as a policy incentive to industrialize photovoltaics => cause a price decline…
    
    There were scientific studies & commission reports back in the 1990s that pretty well predicted the current low PV-Installation and per kWh costs IF a mass market would lead to mass production.
    
    A 1996 Report by the commision to “Protect the climate” claimed that 10-17 cent/kWh could be possible by 2010 and 5-10 cent / kWh could be possible by 2020…. and that’s where we are heading.
    
    Used to be utopian optimism… became reality cause technology markets are predictable.
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Jouni-Valkonen/736198505 Jouni Valkonen
      
      Thomas, FIT is not the One And Only Way to subsidy roof-top solar electricity. It is good for utility scale, but it is not good for households, because tech has already evolved that batteries are cheap enough to be feasible for households. Therefore there are no reasons for households to feed solar energy back to the grid, because with proper subsidies they can store electricity for later usage.
      
      On the other hand, FIT is now slowing down the installations of roof-top solar, because it inhibits on-site usage of power by making it less affordable. FIT was good before 2010, but it is not good anymore in near future, because battery technology is cheap enough to be feasible with subsidies.
      - Bob_Wallace
        
        Please show me some math…
        
        I’d like to see your calculations which make battery storage cheaper than using grid-connected solar.
        
        Massive subsidies might make that true, but that’s an artificial situation.