In a first, renewables covered the majority of electricity consumption in Germany, accounting for nearly 59.7% of the net public electricity generation in 2023.

The share of renewables in the electricity mix coming from renewables stood at 57.1%, according to an analysis by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE.

The total PV installations in 2023 are expected to exceed 14 GW when the full-year data, including December, becomes available.

As a result, energy generation from lignite and coal fell sharply by -27% and -35% respectively.

Wind continued to be the most important source of electricity in 2023, as it contributed 139.8 TWh and formed 32% of the public net electricity generation, a 14.1% year-over-year (YoY) compared to 2022. While the share of onshore wind power rose to 115.3 TWh, offshore wind dropped slightly to 23.5 TWh. Despite this, the expansion of wind energy continues to lag behind the government’s plan.

Only 2.7 GW of onshore wind was installed by November 2023, against the target of 4 GW. The expansion of offshore wind farms was even slower as only 0.23 GW offshore wind capacity was newly installed, compared to the targeted 0.7 GW. This was attributed to the reduced number of tenders and long construction times.

(Source: Fraunhofer ISE)

In 2023, PV systems generated 59.9 TWh of electricity, of which 53.5 TWh was fed into the public grid, and 6.4 TWh was used for self-consumption. In June 2023, Germany achieved the highest monthly solar generation ever at 9 TW. The solar installations as of November 2023 have significantly exceeded the government’s targets, with 13.2 GW of PV as installed compared to the planned  9 GW.

The cumulative energy produced by renewables touched 260 TW, 7.2% YoY compared to the 242 TW generated in the previous year.

“The share of renewable energy in total net electricity generation, including the power plants operated by establishments in the manufacturing sector, mining, and quarrying, is around 54.9% in 2023, compared to 48.2% in 2022,” the report stated.

Further, these growing numbers also increased the demand for storage capacity. The installed battery capacity rose from 4.4 GW in 2022 up to 7.6 GW in 2023, while storage capacity rose from 6.5 GWh to 11.2 GWh.

In the second quarter of 2023, Germany witnessed an installation of 3.3 GW of solar capacity, which was a massive 94% YoY increase from the 1.7 GW added in the same period in 2022.

In August, the German government approved a $63.3 billion green investment plan to aid RE expansion and cut down carbon emissions.