PV-systeem

¹ Based upon BNA data for January 2009 up till - and including - October 2012

Further PV-market analyses for Germany:
2012 2011 2010-II 2010-I 2009 2008 2007 def. 2007 cf. BSW 2006 2005

---

© Data graph: BMU/AGEE Stat, Bundesnetzagentur (Germany); CBS/StatLine, CertiQ (NL)
Graph: www.polderpv.nl, Leiden (NL)

Update for Germany with all Bundesnetzagentur (BNA) data and revisions included, up till, and including, October 2012. For year accumulations the most recent data from the so-called "Zeitreihen" publication of the German Environment Ministry (BMU) and the AGEE Statistics group has been taken as basic reference (all years included as of 1990, update July 2012). Comparison with minute micro-market Netherlands in red-lined box (same scale, 1 GWp line indicated but still far beyond reach), including preliminary accumulated capacity for the year 2011 using the most recently published CBS data, and using a new calculation of the capacity for the year 2011 by Polder PV (article November 29, 2012). To that 2011 prognosis the known certified installations published by CertiQ for January up till August 2012 has been added. Regrettably, at the start of December 2012 more recent data by CertiQ were unknown, and capacity growth of non-certified volumes (the largest part of the market in 2011-2012) remains a mystery until CBS will provide new data (expectation: not earlier than Spring 2013).

With all known revisions by Bundesnetzagentur, 2011 saw a new world record market installation volume of 7.485 MWp* and almost 239.000 new PV-installations (registered entries in the BNA spreadsheets, volume shown in dark-gray column segments). Note, however, that the numbers for earlier years may still be adjusted in coming reports.

Progress with Gigawatts
With the new and revised monthly installations, total accumulated German PV-capacity has broken the 15 GWp barrier in September 2010, and surpassed 17 GWp end of December of that previous record year. The 20 GWp barrier has been surpassed with the August 2011 data provided by Bundesnetzagentur. That impressive volume has been reached in a relatively short time after breaking the "magic" 10 GWp barrier (accumulation of grid-connected PV-systems) in January or February 2010, depending on the data source for accumulated MWp level in previous years. 2011 has easily passed 24 GWp of accumulated capacity. In June 2012 already over 29 GWp has been reached, and finally, the "magical" volume of 30 GWp has been taken in July 2012.

Small, red-lined box for Netherlands based on CBS (only once a year results are being published, 2011 preliminary data became known only as late as May 31, 2012, slightly revised end of June 2012), but had to be revised since CBS provided significantly higher electricy production data for solar on November 26, 2012 (article). CertiQ data (monthly reports and/or - revised - year reports, certified capacity only) lag behind for months, which is highly unusual (latest update: August 2012). From known accumulation data published by CertiQ, it could be derived that at least 14,9 MWp new certified volume could have been added in January - August 2012. This brings "accumulated capacity", known from data in official reports, and own calculations, at roughly 154 MWp end of August 2012. Less than 0,5% of the accumulated ("all certified") volume in Germany... Note that in NL also a considerable volume (double-digit MWp) will have to be added that has not been certified in the first 8 months of 2012. There is no law-embedded central registration for this majority of new PV-installations in the Netherlands. Hard numbers are almost impossible to obtain...

Non-certified installations 2012 are not included in the Dutch number, since data are not [yet] known. For the most recent "educated guess" of possible market development in Netherlands in 2012, see my analysis of July 9, 2012 (Dutch).

* Italy connected a larger volume to the grid in 2011 - 9,4 GWp, but 3,7 GWp of that volume had already been installed in 2010, hence not yet having a net connection (Photon 5/2012)...

---

Graphs made from BNA data/Grafieken gemaakt van BNA data. UPDATE: October 2012 (including partial revision of previous data)

Last data added: Bundesnetzagentur spreadsheet October 2012 (Status: November 30, 2012).

All raw data in this section from Bundesnetzagentur (FRG) unless stated otherwise.
Graphs made by Peter J. Segaar/Polder PV, Leiden (Netherlands).

New capacity per month

CLICK on graph for enlargement

Graph BNA 1 - Newly added nominal photovoltaic (DC) capacity per month (MWp, left Y-axis) in Germany in the period 2009-2012 (up till, and included, October 2012, and earlier published month revisions up till May 2011). Growth has been absolutely unprecedented for a long time, with only significant low volumes in the winter months January and February, in which roof and field work mostly is impossible due to snow and freezing conditions. Year accumulation in 2009 has been 3.802 MWp according to the revised BNA data. 2010 saw 7.378 MWp of new installations, a new world record. Note that the Environment Ministry BMU has come up with a revision of data for 2010, which results in a new capacity of only 6.988 MWp for that year. That record was soon broken the next year (2011), with 7.485 MWp recorded by BNA (preliminary data; note that from the 9,4 GWp recorded in Italy, 3,7 MWp had already been "installed" in 2010, but not yet connected to the grid - source: Photon 5/2010...).

Big PV-installations
The impact on total installed capacity of PV-installations is partially the result of many large solar power plants of 100-1.000 kWp or even larger being reported. In the 2010 and 2011 overviews several of such large installations have been highlighted. There has been considerable growth of the larger system segments since end of 2011. The enormous MWp installation peaks result from "pre-degression-date-rushes" that are so typical if a successful, uncapped feed-in tariff regime enters into a new tariff phase in times that huge numbers of containers with cheap Asian/Chinese PV-modules can be found in all European harbours. In Germany these rushes have become huge, and they are one of the reasons why in Berlin some politicians want to get rid of support for PV altogether. Large MWp peaks are apparent in December 2011, March and June 2012. The "March Peak" might be the result of a "previously unplanned, hasty 100-1.000 kWp installation rush" due to the sudden announcement of German Ministers Röttgen/Rößler that in April incentives would be dramatically cut back as compared to the already strongly adjusted tariffs valid as of Jan. 1, 2012. The June 2012 rush is probably the result of large free-field installations that had their building permits in time, but that were allowed a few months extra to realize the huge projects under the "old" EEG regime (with higher tariffs than planned as of April 1, 2012). A similar, huge "rush" has now occurred in September of 2012: the last month that big installations could be "delivered" with the high incentive for the start of that year. In that month only, 48 portions of big solar parcs were registered with BNA, resulting in a staggering volume of 516 MWp for that segment only. That is more than 3 times total accumulated capacity "officially" known in neighbouring Netherlands up till August 2012...

---

More graphs

In this section I present further graphs of development of the German photovoltaic market. If time allows to synthesize more data, they will appear on this webpage.

Monthly capacity growth differences 2009-2012

KLIK op plaatje voor uitvergroting

Big installations having huge impact on volume growth
This graphs shows those presented in the first graph, but now with yearly installation records for each month presented side by side. The largest fluctuations arise from new "feed-in degression dates", that have been fixed by politicians in Berlin. "Notorious" examples are July 2010, which pushed a - then world record - installation rush in June. December has always been the "busiest month", since every year "natural feed-in degression" starts at January 1 of the new year. The "rush" for December 2011 has been incredible, establishing a new world record month volume of 2,983 GWp in 31 days. That is an astonishing volume of over 93 MWp on average a day, Christmas and New Year's Eve - hypothetically - included. Only the category >100 kWp (here divided in three installation category segments by me) brought 1,94 GWp on-line in that month, 65% of total volume...

In 2012, March saw another installation rush, as most investors feared the brutal incentive cuts announced by Röttgen/Rößler for April. This highly politically motivated desaster policy (later turned down by the Bundesrat, necessitating a review and leading to Röttgen's demise after another hefty blow in regional elections for CDU) resulted in an extra 1,22 GWp of additions. Since free-field installation projects with permits could still realise in the summer under the "old" incentives, it came as no surprise that another huge peak was recorded by BNA in June 2012: again 1,79 GWp was added in 30 days. The overwhelming majority of the capacity involved, again, has been installed in the >100 kWp category in that summer month: 1,54 GWp, 86% of total volume. For comparison: in Jan. - Jun. 2012, the smallest category up till 10 kWp claimed, on average, a volume of only 70 MWp per month (high volume of March included). However, in June 2012 only 42 MWp has been reported for this residential category...

In July and August 2012 less volume was added as in those months in the previous year, in particular so for August. However, 329 MWp still is a large volume for one holiday month. That volume was dwarfed by the (final?) "big installation rush" in September, bringing another large volume of 981 MWp on-line. Even October did well, with 612 MWp added. It remains to be seen how "effective" the break-down policies of the EEG regime (with now monthly degressions of FITs for new installations) will turn out to be in coming month reports of Bundesnetzagentur.

Detail of graph with new capacity of PV-installations per year per category (MWp), focussing on the smaller ("residential") market segments up till 10 kWp (partly off-scale in the image). In particular the segment up till 5 kWp, fitting on many smaller houses in Germany, is important since it is the "barometer" of the most important public market segment. Installation costs are most apparent with small system sizes and become a very important factor in all-system price with relative low cost of the modules. In this detail graph, the smallest segment (1-5 kWp) is represented in light yellow columns at the bottom of the graph. Stacked on top of that is the >5-10 kWp segment (yellow), and so on. From the low volumes in the months not previous to (expected) feed-in degression dates in 2012 (level 4-24 MWp for 1-5 kWp category), it is apparent that the volume of "small" installations is becoming an ever smaller segment of total market volume. However, a large part of the burden to pay for the EEG feed-in, has to be born by civilians having a roof suited for such a PV-system size. It is clear that this discrepancy between realized capacity on "normal" residential roofs, and the ever growing mass of large to huge size scale PV-installations cannot continue indefinitely, if positive social acceptance for support for solar is considered a major goal for the industry in Germany.

Interestingly, in the period since summer 2012, there seems to be some growth again in the "smallest categories" in the EEG data. This is good news, but FITs will go down each month. Will module prices be able to keep track of that killing pace downwards?

^^^ New small PV-installations with sizes less than 5 kWp become rarer in Germany. This "residential" PV-system, having 81 black mono panels, could easily have a system size over 18 kWp if modules of 225 Wp or larger have been applied. It is highly improbable that system production and on-site electricity consumption will be even remotely in balance (an 18 kWp installation, oriented south, could easily produce far beyond 16.000 kWh a year in Germany). In most situations (in Germany), all electricity is fed into the local grid. Photo taken in Stadlohn during short cycling trip in the "Green Border" region between NL and Germany, beyond Winterswijk (see photographic impressions in this contribution by Polder PV).

Monthly installation growth differences 2009-2012

CLICK on graph for enlargement

Figure comparable with the one for capacity, now showing number of installations per year and per month. Despite the many cut-backs in incentives for PV-installations in Germany, the number of new installations realized remains phenomenal. Here the monthly additions are shown. Per year the following numbers have been added according to (revised) Bundesnetzagentur data; 2009 159.820, 2010 249.733 (world record), 2011 238.719.

If we compare the data for the first 10 months (January up till, and including, October) of 2012 with those for the previous years, the following list appears:

Progressive development of installed capacity of photovoltaic installations in Germany in 2012, extracted from the month reports published by Bundesnetzagentur. In green columns the new capacity per month in MWp (refer to left Y-axis for scale). In yellow with red numbers the accumulation of newly installed PV-capacity reported to BNA as of January 1, 2012 (refer to right Y-axis for scale).