Renewable energy in the first quarter of 2024: PV expansion at record level

The first quarter of 2024 has been history since April 1. As operators of energy generation plants have one month from commissioning to enter their new plant in the Federal Network Agency's market master data register, there will be an opportunity to take a look at the expansion figures for the quarter from the beginning of May. And they contain some records.

The expansion of onshore wind power remains at a low level: 160 new wind turbines were added in the first quarter, which together can deliver a peak output of 717 megawatts. According to the German government's onshore wind strategy, 69 gigawatts are to be installed by the end of 2024. The target is likely to be missed: So far, the market master data register only knows of 29,578 turbines with a total of 61.5 gigawatts.

Record in the first quarter

The situation is different for photovoltaics. Its expansion is reaching new records, after 2023 already went down in history as a record year. The market master data register stores two output figures for PV systems because a PV system consists of inverters and modules with different outputs. The net power, which is always the lower of the module power and the inverter power, is relevant for the following evaluation. As a rule, the maximum output of the inverter is slightly lower than that of the modules.

In the first quarter of 2024, 202,024 new photovoltaic systems were installed in Germany, with a total installed peak output of 3.34 gigawatts. Although more systems were added in the same period last year (235,603), they only reached 2.76 gigawatts. A trend from 2023 is continuing: many homeowners are opting for a battery to supplement their PV system. 106,161 new battery storage systems with a total output of 708 megawatts have been installed since the first quarter. As of April 1, a total storage capacity of over 13 gigawatt hours is available in Germany, of which almost 11 gigawatt hours are attributable to storage systems in households. In industry and commerce, the trend towards storage is only slowly gaining momentum, with commercial storage accounting for around half a gigawatt hour. Large-scale storage systems account for over 1.5 gigawatt hours.

Reluctant large roof owners

Balcony power plants will also continue to be connected and entered in the market master data register in 2024: 56,869 new plug-in systems have been added, with a combined capacity of 39 megawatts. The database now has a total of over 407,000 balcony power plants with a combined installed capacity of 256 megawatts.

Private households continue to dominate the new installations. In contrast, another group of roof owners continues to weaken and leaves the potential of their abundant flat roofs untapped: public authorities and public institutions. In the first three months of the year, only 902 PV systems (including some the size of balcony power plants) were built on public buildings (which also include hospitals) across the country, with a combined peak output of 35 megawatts. The largest system on a public building was installed by "Bonifatius Hospital Lingen gGmbH" on its hospital: the inverter has a peak output of 880 kilowatts and there are 2,636 modules on the roof.

The largest single system of the first quarter is the "SILUX Solarpark 1" near Kahnsdorf in Saxony, which has an output of 111 megawatts. The fitters have installed 283,878 modules on the open space. The plant is part of Germany's largest solar park, which has a total output of 600 megawatts and consists of six plants. The company Signal Iduna invested in the site of a former open-cast lignite mine and Shell Energy purchased the electricity under a long-term electricity supply contract.

(jam)