Germany Installs 775 MW Of PV In Q1 2013
Derived from German-language reports, Germany’s Federal Environment Minister, Peter Altmaier, announced that the country had added 290 megawatts (MW) of new photovoltaic capacity in March.
This information comes ahead of expected Federal Network Agency figures, but if the information proves to be accurate then that not only means that Germany has installed 775 MW of photovoltaic capacity in the first quarter of 2013.
The figure is actually lower than any of the decreasing monthly installations from the end of 2012, but higher than the 275 MW installed in January and 211 MW in February this year. These fluctuations are laid at the feet of the reductions to the German solar feed-in tariff that took place at the beginning of this year. However, the low average for each month may in fact slow the continual decrease to PV FiTs.
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Germany installed a record amount of PV last year, reaching 7.6 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity in a year that concluded with a tapering decline in installation (reports showed that “611 megawatts had been installed in October, 435 MW in November and 360 MW in December.”
PV-Magazine did some rough calculations based on the new figures which describe what the FITs might look like in May;
If this proves correct, the government mandated photovoltaic construction limit of 2.5 to 3.5 GW would be exceeded by more than 1.8 GW. As such, feed-in tariffs would fall by a further 1.8% in May, to between €0.1082 to €0.1563/kWh, depending on system size.
If more is installed in March than 290 MW, then solar subsidies would fall by 2.2% in May.
The German Federal Network Agency, the fantastically named Bundesnetzagentur, will most likely have these figures release officially in the next day or three.
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