Solar power in Germany

There is, however, a 1.5 MW experimental CSP-plant used for on-site engineering purposes rather than for commercial electricity generation, the Jülich Solar Tower owned by the German Aerospace Center.

[4]: 17 As the combined share of fluctuating wind and solar is approaching 17 per cent on the national electricity mix,[citation needed] other issues are becoming more pressing and others more feasible.

[14]: 143  Government subsidies were higher in Germany (as well as Japan), which prompted the solar industry supply chain to begin moving from the US to those countries.

[1] Proponents from the PV industry blame the lack of governmental commitment, while others point out the financial burden associated with the fast-paced roll-out of photovoltaics, rendering the transition to renewable energies unsustainable in their view.

In both cases the learning curve reduces the cost of installation, but is not a large contribution to growth, as grid parity is still always reached.

[29] Since the end of the boom period, national PV market has since declined significantly, due to the amendments in the German Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) that reduced feed-in tariffs and set constraints on utility-scaled installations, limiting their size to no more than 10 kW.

[31] As of November 2016[update], tenants in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) will soon be able to benefit from the PV panels mounted on the buildings in which they live.

The state government has introduced measures covering the self-consumption of power, allowing tenants to acquire the electricity generated onsite more cheaply than their regular utility contracts stipulate.

[14]: 145 In 2017, approximately 9 GW of photovoltaic plants in Germany were being retrofitted to shut down[34] if the frequency increases to 50.2 Hz, indicating an excess of electricity on the grid.

[35][36][37] However, power failures could not have been caused by photovoltaics in 2006, as solar PV played a negligible role in the German energy mix at that time.

[38] In December 2012, the president of Germany's "Bundesnetzagentur", the Federal Network Agency, stated that there is "no indication", that the switch to renewables is causing more power outages.

[39] Amory Lovins from the Rocky Mountain Institute wrote about the German Energiewende in 2013, calling the discussion about grid stability a "disinformation campaign".

[dubious – discuss] Solar PV capacity doubled on average every 18 months in this period; an annual growth rate of more than 50 per cent.

However, photovoltaic installations are widespread throughout the sixteen states and are not limited to the southern region of the country as demonstrated by a watts per capita distribution.