Icon: enlarge
Solar park on the former military airfield in Zerbst, Saxony-Anhalt
Photo: Steffen Schellhorn / imago images
In Germany, more electricity has been generated with solar energy since the beginning of the year than in the entire previous year.
According to calculations by the energy company Eon, solar systems have so far fed around 43 billion kilowatt hours of electricity into the grid in 2020.
That is about a billion kilowatt hours more than in the whole of 2019, as the Eon analysis shows.
According to Eon, the entire green electricity production in Germany is on a record course.
Since January, wind turbines, solar and biomass systems, hydropower plants and other renewable energy sources have fed in around 195 billion kilowatt hours of electricity.
Last year there were 187 billion kilowatt hours up to the end of October, which means an increase of a good 4 percent.
According to Eon, the solar power generated so far this year could cover almost twice the annual electricity demand of all private households in Germany.
By far the largest electricity consumer is industry.
According to calculations by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE), this year will be a record year for renewable energies: According to this, wind, solar, biomass and hydropower plants together produced 52.5 percent of the public net production from the beginning of the year to October 22.
Last year the share of green electricity was 46 percent.
80,000 new single-family homes per year: Eon sees great potential
The energy supplier still sees great potential in the expansion of photovoltaics.
More than 80,000 single-family houses would be completed in Germany each year.
"If you were to equip each of them with an average PV system, we could generate an additional 600 million kilowatt hours of solar power across Germany," said the head of Eon Energie Deutschland, Victoria Ossadnik.
Building renovations would offer further considerable expansion options.
Icon: The mirror
caw / dpa
