Renewables provide over half of German net power in March

The German renewable energy industry set a new record in March, producing over half of the country’s net electricity generation, well up on the previous record set in May of 2018, when renewables accounted for 48.6 per cent of total net electricity generation.

These are the latest figures published by Energy Charts, courtesy of German solar research institute Fraunhofer ISE, who track daily, weekly, and monthly German power figures.

As you can be seen below – and as we reported last month – Germany has benefited from windy and blustery conditions through March, with weeks’ 10 and 11 generating renewable electricity in excess of 60 per cent of the country’s power needs.

It’s worth noting that my previous reporting, which suggested German renewables provided 72.4 per cent, was inaccurate – confirmed by Fraunhofer ISE as having miscalculated which “week” was which. Specifically, the 72.4 per cent reported only accounted for the first day of week 12, which had only just begun, rather than just finished as I had miscalculated.

When March was over, however, the weekly figures evolved into a new monthly record, with Germany’s renewable energy capacity producing 54.3 per cent of Germany’s power needs, as seen below.

This was led, unsurprisingly, by wind energy, which accounted for 34.2 per cent of the country’s net electricity generation in March, followed by brown coal with 17.1 per cent and nuclear with 13.9 per cent. Other renewable energy technologies accounted for smaller shares, with biomass providing 8.1 per cent and solar providing only 7.3 per cent.