Germany’s PV capacity addition at record level in January following rooftop boom

For the month of January, 56,620 photovoltaic systems with a total capacity of 780.7 megawatts (MW) were newly reported to the German Federal Network Agency (BNetzA), of which 760.4 MW were subsidized by the Renewable Energy Law (EEG) and 20.4 MW were unsubsidized systems. This means that new registrations were almost twice as high (plus 96.4 percent) as in December (397.6 MW).
There has never been such a large amount of newly reported capacity in a January before; the previous highest value was reached in 2019 with 552 MW. At that time, however, there was a special effect due to a change in the subsidy conditions, and this is also the case this year: since January 1, rooftop systems are only required to participate in tenders from a capacity of 1 MW; until then, an upper limit of 750 kilowatts (kW) had applied. In addition, the renumeration for systems from 300 to 750 kW are now significantly higher. Obviously, many commissionings were delayed as a result: the total capacity of new rooftop systems (outside of tenders) was only 172 MW in December 2022, but 562.5 MW in January 2023 – an increase of 227 percent.
The BNetzA also further adjusted its statistics for past periods, with significant changes – presumably primarily due to the recent inclusion of unsubsidized installations in the totals. Accordingly, the total solar power capacity in operation in Germany as of December 31, 2022, was 67.399 gigawatts, which is about 900 MW more than the BNetzA had indicated at the end of January.
© PHOTON