According to the latest data from the German Federal Network Agency, the newly installed photovoltaic (PV) capacity in the German PV market in 2023 reached 14.3 GW, surpassing the target of 9 GW.
Compared to 2022, the growth rate of PV installed capacity was 85%. Among the states, Bavaria led with the largest installed capacity of 3.5 GW. By the end of 2023, Germany’s total installed PV capacity reached 81.7 GW. This implies that an additional 19 GW per year is required to achieve the target of 215 GW of solar energy by 2030.
In terms of monthly installed capacity, October and November maintained consistency, even slightly exceeding the monthly average growth rate of approximately 1.2 GW. The new capacity in October was about 1.4 GW, ranking second for the year. However, December saw a significant decline, mainly due to a reduction in the number of large ground-based PV station tenders compared to previous months.
Forecast for 2024
Despite a slight slowdown in the fourth quarter, EUPD Research expects the growth trend of recent years to continue in 2024. This is attributed mainly to the continued favorable regulatory framework, including the Solar Package 1, passed in August 2023. The Solar Package 1 aims to make procedures easier, particularly benefiting balcony system and 100 kW solar solution and above.
It also provides more favorable conditions for tenders for ground-based PV stations and dual-use PV systems, especially in agricultural PV. Looking at different market segments, the residential solar system (<10 kW) and commercial solar station (<500 kW) segments experienced the highest growth compared to 2022, with installed capacities increasing by 131% and 145%, respectively. The growth rate for large solar ground-based stations (>500 kW) was lower at 41%, but still accounted for over 5 GW of newly installed capacity.
In 2023, the Federal Network Agency registered 260,000 balcony PV systems, three times more than in 2022. The installed capacity of balcony PV accounts for approximately 1.5% of Germany’s overall PV installed capacity, around 0.2 GW. In reality, the installed capacity of balcony PV systems may be higher, as many users may not have registered their systems when purchasing and using balcony PV.