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Wednesday, 01. July 2020

Press release Fraunhofer ISE

German Net Electricity Generation in First Half of 2020: Renewables Reach Record Share of 55.8 Percent

The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE just presented the data on the net electricity generation for the public power supply for the first half of 2020, which is based on data available on the Energy Charts platform.

At 55.8 percent, the share of renewables set a new record. In February, their share even reached a new high of 61.8 percent.

In the first six months of 2020, solar and wind fed a total of 102.9 terawatt hours (TWh) into the public grid, compared with 92.3 TWh in the first half of 2019.

By contrast, coal-fired power generation declined sharply, with the share from lignite falling to 13.7 percent and hard coal to just 6 percent.

Wind power was again the strongest contributor, accounting for 30.6 percent.

Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are evident Beginning in the second quarter of 2020, there was a noticeably lower demand for electricity due to the decline in industrial production caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, electricity consumption dropped to 35.3 TWh in June (June 2019: 37.6 TWh), and electricity production fell from 47.9 TWh in January to 36.0 TWh in June. In the first half of this year, electricity consumption was 234.2 TWh, a significant drop from 245.7 TWh in the first half of 2019. Similarly electricity production fell by 21.7 TWh to 243.8 TWh compared with the first half of 2019. Part of this decline is due to reduced exports which sank from 20.1 TWh to 7.5 TWh.

Renewable Energy Led by Strong Wind In the first half of the year, photovoltaic systems fed approx. 27.9 TWh into the public grid, an increase of 11.2 percent compared with the previous year (25.1 TWh). The solar power systems benefited from the favorable weather conditions, which allowed more than 6 TWh of electricity to be produced per month from April to June. Wind power produced about 75 TWh in the first half of 2020 and was thus about 11.7 per cent above the production in the first half of 2019 (67.2 TWh). Due to the numerous winter storms, its share even rose to 45 percent of net electricity generation in February. Hydroelectric production in the first half of 2020 was approximately 9.5 TWh, down 9 percent from 10.5 TWh in the prior-year period. Approximately 23.7 TWh were produced from biomass, a slight increase compared to the previous year. In total, the renewable energy sources of solar, wind, hydro and biomass produced approx. 136.1 TWh in the first half of 2020 (previous year: 125.6 TWh). The share in the net public electricity generation, i.e. the electricity mix that actually comes out of the socket, is approx. 55.8 percent, a sharp increase compared to 2019 (47 percent). The share of renewables in the total gross electricity generation rose above 50 percent for the first time. Gross electricity generation also includes the industry's own production (companies in the manufacturing sector as well as in mining and quarrying) and the internal losses of conventional power plants. Both of these are not fed into the public power grid.

Electricity from Coal-fired Plants Falls Sharply – Switch to Natural Gas Net electricity generation from nuclear power plants amounted to approx. 30.1 TWh in the first half of 2020, a decline of 12.9 percent compared to 2019 (34.6 TWh). In the same period, lignite-fired power plants produced about 33.6 TWh net electricity. This is 19.1 TWh or 36.3 percent less than in the first half of 2019. Net production from hard coal-fired power plants fell by 46 percent to just 14.4 TWh. This sharp decline is due to the increased price of CO₂ certificates, which averaged 21.91 Euro/t-CO₂, as well as to the sharp drop in the day-ahead exchange electricity price of 22.94 Euro/MWh on average (compared with 36.83 Euros/MWh in 2019). With an emission of about one tonne CO₂ per generated megawatt hour of coal-fired electricity, the economic viability of coal-fired power plants was hardly a given. A fuel switch from coal to natural gas took place, due to the price for natural gas plummeting by 50 percent (8.03 Euro/MWh instead of 16.38 Euro in 2019) and the fact that natural gas power plants have lower CO₂ certificate prices. Gas-fired power stations increased their production to 28 TWh, an increase of 13.9 percent compared with the 24.6 TWh in the previous year. In addition to the power plants for the public electricity supply, there are also gas-fired power plants in the mining and manufacturing industries to supply their own electricity. These produced an additional 20 TWh for the company's own industrial needs.

Link to press release from July 01, 2020: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/2020/net-energy-production-first-half-of-2020.html

Friday, 6. March 2020

New Charts regarding the study: Paths to a Climate-Neutral Energy System

We are happy to support the recent study: Paths to a Climate-Neutral Energy System - The German Energy Transition in its Social Context by Fraunhofer ISE interactively.

You will find detailed charts regarding the following topics of the study packed into the new menu entry Transformation paths:

In this study, the researchers examine the course, technical feasibility and the costs of the energy system transformation in the context of various developments in societal behavior and attitudes.

For the simulation and optimization of the scenarios they used the Energy System Model REMod developed at Fraunhfoer ISE.

We will update and extend the new contents in this section regarding the study in the near future - it's worth to have a look!

Link to the english press release from 20.02.2020: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/publications/studies/paths-to-a-climate-neutral-energy-system.html

Friday, 4. January 2019

Net Public Electricity Generation in Germany in 2018

update: second version

This report presents the data on German net electricity generation for public electricity supply. The figures thus represent the electricity mix that actually comes out of the socket at home and that is consumed in the household or is used to charge electric vehicles publicly. On the German electricity exchange EEX, only net electricity generation is traded and only net figures are measured for cross-border electricity flows.

The Difference between Gross and Net Production The AG Energiebilanzen, on the other hand, uses data on total gross electricity generation. This also includes the electrical losses of the power plants, which are consumed directly in the power plant and are not fed into the public power grid at all. On the consumption side, the electrical losses of the power plants are also added to the gross electricity consumption so that the balance is correct again. In addition, the AG Energiebilanzen also takes into account the industry's own electricity generation, the so-called companies in the manufacturing industry as well as in mining and quarrying. This own generation is consumed directly in the companies and is not fed into the public grid. The data on public net electricity generation and total gross electricity generation differ considerably. This also results in significantly different shares of renewable energies.

Renewable Energy Sources: Solar and Wind Photovoltaic systems fed approx. 45.7 TWh into the public grid in 2018. Production increased by approx. 6.3 TWh or 16% compared to the previous year. The installed PV capacity at the end of November was approx. 45.5 GW. The increase in 2018 amounted to approx. 3.2 GW. The maximum solar capacity was approx. 32 GW on 02.07.2018 at 1:15 pm. At this time, 39% of the total electricity generation came from photovoltaics. The maximum share of solar energy in the total daily energy of all electricity sources was 22.6% on 6 May. From April to August 2018, the monthly power generation of PV systems was higher than that of coal-fired power plants. Wind energy produced around 111 TWh in 2018 and production was around 5.4% higher than in 2017. Wind energy is thus the second strongest source of energy after lignite, but ahead of hard coal and nuclear energy. In ten months, wind power generation exceeded generation from hard coal and nuclear energy. The maximum capacity generated was approx. 45.9 GW on 08.12.2018 at 12:00 noon. The share of onshore wind was approx. 87.4 TWh, 2 TWh more than in 2017. Offshore wind increased production from 17.4 TWh in 2017 to over 18.8 TWh in 2018. Approximately 16.6 TWh were generated in the North Sea. Offshore production in the Baltic Sea was approx. 2.3 TWh. At the end of November 2018, the installed capacity of onshore wind was 52.7 GW and of offshore wind 5.86 GW. Together, solar and wind turbines produced approx. 157 TWh in 2018. This puts them ahead of lignite, hard coal and nuclear energy.

Renewable Energy Sources: Hydropower and Biomass Hydropower produced only approx. 17 TWh compared to 20 TWh in 2017, the second lowest value achieved in the last 30 years. Only in 1991, production was even lower at 14.9 TWh. From May to December 2018, monthly electricity generation was below that of the previous year. About 44.8 TWh were produced from biomass. Production is exactly at the level of the previous year. In total, the renewable energy sources solar, wind, water and biomass produced approx. 219 TWh in 2018. This is 4.3% above the previous year's level of 210 TWh. The share of public net electricity generation, i.e. the electricity mix that actually comes from the socket, was over 40%.

The share of the total gross electricity generation including the power plants of the "companies in the manufacturing industry as well as in mining and quarrying" is approx. 35% according to BDEW.

See https://www.bdew.de

Non-renewable Electricity Generation Net electricity production from nuclear power plants amounted to 72.1 TWh and was thus at the previous year's level of 72.2 TWh. Lignite-fired power plants produced 131.3 TWh net. This is approx. 2.7 TWh or 2% less than in 2017. The lignite-fired power plants reacted more flexibly to low exchange electricity prices than in previous years and reduce their output to below 6 GW, e.g. on January 5, 2018, May 21 2018, October 3rd 2018 and December 8 2018. The reduction occurs mainly at low or negative exchange electricity prices. However, lignite-fired power plants are still inflexible in their reaction to the high feed-in of renewable energies. Net production from hard coal-fired power plants amounted to 75.7 TWh. It was 6 TWh or 7.4% lower than in 2017, when 81.7 TWh were produced net. Gas-fired power plants produced 40 TWh net for the public electricity supply. They were thus 9.1 TWh or 18.5% below the level of the previous year. In addition to the power plants for public electricity supply, there are also gas-fired power plants in the mining and manufacturing industries for the company's own electricity supply. These also produced an additional 20 to 25 TWh for industrial own consumption, which is not included in this publication.

Export Surplus In 2018, an export surplus (physical flows) of approx. 45.6 TWh was achieved. This is a slight decline compared to 2017, when the export surplus was 52.5 TWh. The majority of exports went to the Netherlands (19.2 TWh), which transmits a large part of its electricity to Belgium and the UK. Austria ranked second with 11.6 TWh. Switzerland received 11.5 TWh, which was mainly forwarded to Italy. Poland ranks fourth with 7 TWh, which transports part of the electricity from eastern Germany via the Czech Republic to southern Germany.

Germany imported 8.3 TWh of electricity from France, which is mainly forwarded to neighboring countries. The average exported capacity was approx. 5.2 GW. This corresponds to the output of four nuclear power plants. During 7927 hours of the year (90,5%) electricity was exported and during 833 hours (9,5%) electricity was imported. In foreign trade with electricity, 26.4 TWh were imported at a value of 1.12 billion euros from January to October. Exports amounted to 64.8 TWh and a value of 2.5 billion euros. On balance, there was an export surplus of 38.5 TWh and income worth 1.38 billion euros. Imported electricity costs on average 42.39 Euro/MWh and exported electricity 38.60 Euro/MWh.

Load, Exchange Electricity Prices and Market Value The load was 508.5 TWh. This is approx. 3.1% more than in 2017.

The load includes the electricity consumption and grid losses, but not the pump electricity consumption and the own consumption of conventional power plants. The market value of wind power was 38.14 Euros/MWh or 88.2%. Solar power had a market value of 43.87 Euro/MWh or 101.4%.

Version History This second version from January 4, 2019 contains corrections and improvements. The first version from January 1, 2019 takes into account all electricity generation data of the Electricity Exchange EEX in Leipzig up to and including December 31, 2018. The hourly data of the EEX have been energetically corrected for the available monthly data of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on electricity generation up to and including September 2018 and the monthly data on imports and exports of electricity up to and including October 2018. For the remaining months, the correction factors were estimated on the basis of previous annual data. The extrapolated values are subject to larger tolerances.

For additional slides of our assessment of 2018 visit the Renewable Energy Data page of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE.

1 TWh = 1 terawatt-hour = 1000 gigawatts-hours (GWh) = 1 million megawatt-hours (MWh) = 1 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh)

Thursday, 03. January 2019

New charts

In addition to the warming strips, there are also the temperatures from 1881 to 2018 as line diagrams for Germany and all federal states available. The fit curves show the long-term trends. Mouse-over shows the tooltips with the values.

The annual sunshine duration and precipitation in Germany is also available in our climate area for annual averages.



Saturday, 22. December 2018

New chart

The Energy Charts now include the warming stripes for Germany and all federal states since 1881. The graphics are interactive and also show the annual temperatures when moving the mouse over the stripes.

Many thanks to Ed Hawkins for this good idea!

Tuesday, 9. October 2018

New chart

The Energy Charts now also offer graphs for Day Ahead and Intraday electricity spot prices in connection with the trading volume in MWh. Weekly, monthly and yearly charts are available.

Friday, 3. August 2018

New chart

The Energy Charts now show the hourly values of the following climate data of DWD for Germany:

wind speed and wind direction of 300 stations

global and diffuse radiation of 26 stations

air temperature and humidity of 500 stations

at climate.

Thursday, 24. May 2018

New features and changes regarding GDPR

The welcome page and the map of power plants have been reworked.

Now you will find all news and and the twitter feed on the startpage giving you a fast overview to all news and interesting topics or events that have been tweeted.

In addition, we have updated our privacy policy in accordance with the requirements of the GDPR.

Saturday, 19. May 2018

New chart

The Energy Charts now include graphs showing the filling levels of pumped storage and seasonal storage power stations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland at Storage filling levels.

Wednesday, 9. May 2018

New charts

At the scatter charts on spot market prices we have added additional charts with

he Day Ahead price of electricity above the sum of wind and solar power.

If wind plus solar power increases by one GW, the price drops by 0.75 Euro/MWh.

If wind plus solar power increases by one GW, the price drops by 0.75 Euro/MWh. with the Day Ahead price of electricity above the residual load (load minus solar minus wind).

If the residual load increases by one GW, the price increases by 1.10 Euro/MWh.

Tuesday, 8. May 2018

Power generation in Germany – assessment of 2017

update: fourth version

This report presents data on German net electricity generation for public power supply. The numbers thus represent the electricity mix that actually is consumed in the households or with which even electric vehicles are charged. Only the net electricity generation is traded on the German electricity exchange EEX and only net figures are measured for cross-border electricity flows.

Difference between gross and net production In contrast, the AG Energiebilanzen uses the data of the total gross electricity generation. This also includes the electrical losses of the power plants, which are consumed directly in the power plant and are not fed into the public grid at all. In addition, the AG Energiebilanzen also takes into account the self-generation of electricity in industry, the so-called "factories in the processing industry as well as in mining and in the extraction of stones and earth". This self-generation is consumed directly in the factories and also not fed into the public grid. Data on net electricity generation and total gross electricity generation differ significantly. This also results in significantly different shares of renewable energies.

Renewable energy: solar and wind In 2017, roughly 38.4 TWh of electricity from photovoltaic arrays was fed into the grid. Production thus is 0.4 TWh or 1% higher than in 2016. Despite the increase, electricity generation is still below the 2015 level, when 38.7 TWh were generated. The installed PV power at end of December was 43 GW. Approximately 2.3 GW PV were added in 2017. Solar power production peaked at 30 GW and 42.7% of total electricity generation on 27 May 2017at 13:00 o'clock. In June 2017, the monthly electricity production of PV systems (5.8 TWh) was higher than that of hard coal power plants (4.7 TWh). Wind energy produced about 104 TWh in 2017 and was about 32% higher than the production of 78.6 TWh in 2016. Wind energy is thus for the first time the second largest power source after lignite, but ahead of hard coal and nuclear. In ten months, wind power production exceeded that of hard coal and nuclear. Quarter hourly production peaked at 40 GW on 28 October 2017. Onshore wind farms produced 85 TWh in 2017, 20 TWh more than in 2016. Offshore wind farms raised their production from 12 TWh in 2016 to 17.4 TWh in 2017. In the North Sea they produced 16 TWh compared to 10.7 TWh in 2016. The offshore wind farms in the Baltic Sea produced 1.4 TWh (1.3 TWh in 2015). At the end of 2017, 51 GW wind onshore and 5.3 GW wind offshore were installed. Taken together, solar and wind power generators produced approx. 142 TWh in 2017. For the first time, they are thus ahead of brown coal, hard coal and nuclear.

Renewable energy: hydropower and biomass Approximately 20.5 TWh were produced from hydropower, a level roughly unchanged year-over-year. Production was lowest in January (1 TWh) and highest in May (2 TWh). Roughly 47.5 TWh of electricity was generated from biomass. Production is at the level of the previous year. In total, renewable energy sources – solar, wind, hydropower, and biomass – produced approximately 210 TWh of electricity in 2017. This is 15% higher than the previous year's level at 182 TWh. Renewables thus made up around 38% of public net power supply. The share in gross power supply – including power plants in the processing sector, the mining sector, quarries, and excavation – is around 35%.

Non-renewable generation The net power production from nuclear plants came in at around 72.2 TWh, 10% below the 80 TWh net in the previous year. The reasons for the decline are mainly longer repair and maintenance work. As of December 31, 2017, the Gundremmingen B nuclear power plant was finally shut down. Lignite power plants generated 134 TWh net, some 1 TWh or 0.7% less than in 2016. They were forced to curtail production in particular at times of peak wind power generation during wind storms. Lignite power stations are still inflexible in their response to high feed of renewable energies. Net production from hard coal plants was posted at 81.7 TWh, 18 TWh (18%) lower than in 2016, when 99.8 TWh were produced. Gas power plants for public power supply generated some 49.1 TWh, 2.6 TWh above the value of 2016. In addition to power plants for public power supply, there are also power generation facilities in the mining and manufacturing sector for self supply. These units produced additional 20 to 25 TWh for industrial use, which is not included in this publication.

Export surplus In 2017, the export surplus reached some 53 TWh. Since 2011, the export surplus is continuously rising. The largest share of exports, 16.6 TWh, went to Switzerland, which passed along most of the electricity to Italy. In second place came Austria, which also passes some of the electricity to it’s neighbor countries. The Netherlands in third place, passed on most of this exports to Belgium and the UK. Poland on the fourth place passed on some of the electricity from eastern Germany to southern Germany via the Czech Republic. Germany imported less electricity from France compared to the previous years, mainly since several French nuclear power plants were temporarily switched off for safety reasons. Germany acts as transit country for French electricity and passes it to neighboring countries. Electricity was exported at 8215 hours of the year (94%) and electricity was imported in 545 hours (6%). In power trading 26.9 TWh were imported to a value of 1.03 billion euros. The export amounted to 79.8 TWh and a value of 2.84 billion euros. In balance, the resulting export surplus was 52.8 TWh and revenues worth 1.81 billion euros. Imported electricity cost an average of 38.31 Euro/MWh compared to 35.57 Euro/MWh for exports. The average volume weighted day-ahead price of electricity has risen from 28.78 Euro / MWh in 2016 to 32.89 Euro / MWh and is adjusted for inflation at approximately the same level as of 2003 and 2004.

Version History The fourth version of 08.05.2018 contains additional graphics on CO2 emissions. The third version of 25.04.2018 contains a correction in the market value factors. The second version from 29.03.2018 takes into account the monthly data of the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) for electricity generation for the entire year 2017. The first version of 02 January 2018 takes into account the monthly power generation data published by the German Statistical Office (Destatis) up to and including September 2017. The data for October, November and December were extrapolated from adjusted hourly values from the European Energy Exchange EEX in Leipzig and hourly data from the four German TSOs (50 Hertz, Amprion, Tennet, TransnetBW). The tolerance range is greater for extrapolated values.

For additional slides of our assessment of 2017 visit the Renewable Energy Data page of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE.

1 TWh = 1 terawatt-hour = 1000 gigawatts-hours (GWh) = 1 million megawatt-hours (MWh) = 1 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh)

Friday, 4. May 2018

New charts

The Energy Charts now offer scatter charts on spot market prices with

the price of electricity above the wind power.

Without wind power, the average price is 47.74 Euro/MWh.

If the wind power increases by one GW, the price drops by 0.91 Euro/MWh.

Without wind power, the average price is 47.74 Euro/MWh. If the wind power increases by one GW, the price drops by 0.91 Euro/MWh. the price of electricity above the solar power.

Without solar power, the average price is 41.71 Euro/MWh.

If the solar power increases by one GW, the price drops by 0.58 Euro/MWh.

Without solar power, the average price is 41.71 Euro/MWh. If the solar power increases by one GW, the price drops by 0.58 Euro/MWh. the price of electricity above the load.

If the load increases by one GW, the price increases by 0.82 Euro/MWh.

Friday, 13. April 2018

New chart features

The Energy Charts now also show the planned power production of conventional power plants and the forecast for wind and solar under "all sources" at electricity production in Germany.

This feature was requested in the user survey.

Wednesday, 21. March 2018

Thank-you very much! We are overwhelmed by your support!

Over the past four weeks, more than 1600 users of the Energy Charts responded to our questionnaire. Many thanks for your feedback and the many comments and ideas. In the following weeks, we will evaluate the responses and work on new functionalities and improvements in order to make the Energy Charts more understandable and informative and more fitting to your needs. Stay in touch!

Wednesday, 21. February 2018

For a Better Understanding of the Energy Transition: Fraunhofer ISE Interviews Users of the Energy Charts

The Energy Charts, compiled by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, are the most detailed database for energy and market data on power generation in Germany and thus an important source for journalists and decision-makers. The interpretation of the data and graphics, however, is to some extent complex. A current project of Fraunhofer ISE is to improve the display of data and graphics in order to make them easier to use for journalists. Other users of the site will also profit from these improvements.

Monday, 5. February 2018

New chart features

The energy charts now also show hourly values over one whole year at electricity production in Germany. Just select the empty field in "month" and "week".

Attention! Depending on the source you select, the browser must display more than 100.000 values. This can take up to a minute.