From pv magazine Germany

In the coming year, the levy, which finances all of Germany’s renewable energy incentives programs under the country’s renewable energy law (EEG), will drop to €0.06405 cents per kWh. This is almost 6% less than in 2018 and the second reduction in a row, the German Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) announced on Monday.

On October 15 each year, the German transmission system operators must determine the level of the EEG levy for the following year, on the basis of expert reports. The reports were provided this year by the University of Duisburg-Essen and the Fraunhofer ISI.

The Bundesnetzagentur reports that since 2014, the EEG levy has remained stable, even though the volume of electricity subsidized by the EEG has risen by 50% during this period. On the other hand, several reforms have been enacted, in order to prevent the EEG from rising in recent years.

The Federal Network Agency cites the transition from FITs to tenders as a factor contributing to the reduction of the levy for 2019, but also the significantly higher spot market prices. As a third reason for the planned reduction, the authority points out the high surplus on the EEG account, which at the end of September was €3.65 billion.

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In order to determine the level of the EEG levy, the transmission system operators must also take into account the expected expansion of PV and wind power for the coming year. They expect a total of 5.75 GW of newly installed capacity, of which almost 2.7 GW will be from PV, which is now growing at almost the same pace as wind power on land and at sea together, according to the data of the transmission system operators.

In total, electricity generation from renewable energies is expected to amount to 217 terawatt hours in the coming year.

The total payment of all power generators under the umbrella of the EEG law in Germany is estimated by the transmission system operators to be €33.1 billion for 2019. This is expected to be offset by revenues on the power market of €7.8 billion. As a liquidity reserve, which should prevent the EEG account from slipping into negative territory, the transmission system operators are expecting 6% as in the previous year.