- Germany generated 217 billion kWh of renewable energy in the first nine months of 2024.
- Onshore wind sources produced 79.8 billion kWh, the most renewable energy output.
According to preliminary estimates, Germany generated 217 billion kWh of electricity from renewable sources in the first nine months of 2024, covering 56 per cent of the country’s gross power consumption.
The share rose by almost four percentage points compared to the same period in 2023, according to calculations by the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Wuerttemberg (ZSW) and the Federal Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW).
The improvement mainly reflects an expansion in solar power. According to the data, Germany generated about 64.7 billion kWh of photovoltaic electricity in the first three quarters of 2024, up by 15.4 per cent from the previous year.
The most renewable energy output came from onshore wind sources, 79.8 billion kWh. According to the figures, 32.6 billion kWh of renewable electricity came from biomass, nearly 18.9 billion kWh from offshore wind parks, and 17.1 billion kWh from hydropower.
In the period under review, Germany also generated about 149 billion kWh from conventional energy sources, down from around 166 billion kWh a year earlier.
“The fact that more than every second kilowatt-hour of electricity consumed in Germany is now constantly renewable shows that we are on the right path,” Kerstin Andreae, chairwoman of the BDEW executive board, commented.
Andreae, however, urged for a faster legislative process to enable the launch of tenders for hydrogen-ready gas power plants, which are needed to secure capacity when weather conditions are not optimal.
This follows the record in the first half of 2024, when Germany generated more power from renewable energy sources than at any other time in its history, according to a report from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE).
The German testing house said that 65 per cent of the country’s net public electricity generation came from renewable energy sources from January through June, as both fossil fuel generation and electricity prices declined.
Solar PV generated 32.4TWh over the period, a 15 per cent increase from the same period in 2023. Fraunhofer said wind generation led the pack “by far” with 73.4TWh, constituting 34.1 per cent of the total net public electricity generation. In total – including hydropower, biomass, and solar and wind – renewable sources generated 140TWh of power, a “new record”.