German Market Environment

In 2021, almost 2 million solar systems (installed capacity of 54 gigawatts) supplied around 10% of the electricity produced in Germany, with the share of electricity generation from photovoltaics continuing to rise.

The Federal Network Agency has published the expansion figures for renewable energies in 2022. According to the Agency, the net addition of photovoltaic capacity for last year was 7.2 GW, a figure that is three times higher than the amount that wind energy achieved.

The figures are the net additions to electricity generation from renewable energies. That is, they are the commissioning minus the decommissioning, which the authority has recorded in the market master data register.

Bavaria is in the lead when compared to the other federal states

In a comparison of the federal states, Bavaria leads with 2.1 GW of new PV system capacity. This is followed by NRW with 1.3 GW, Brandenburg with 1.2 GW, Lower Saxony with 1 GW, Baden-Württemberg with 0.8 GW, and Schleswig-Holstein with 0.7 GW. In Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg, wind energy plays no role. Schleswig-Holstein is the only federal state that has added more wind energy than photovoltaics. All other federal states fall very clearly behind in this statistic. Both photovoltaics and wind energy are far from the expansion path targeted by the federal government.