Renewable energy covered 38% of Germany’s gross electricity consumption in the first three quarters of 2018, an increase of three percentage points over the same period in 2017.
The figures were released by the country’s Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research BadenWürttemberg (ZSW) and the Federal Association of Energy and Water Management (BDEW) based on an initial assessment.
Offshore wind contributed with circa 13 billion kWh to the nearly 170 billion kWh produced by renewables in Q1-3 2018. The technology showed a 1.3 billion kWh increase compared to the same period last year.
Onshore wind remained the leading source of renewable energy in the period with nearly 63 billion kWh, a 13% increase from last year.
According to ZSW and BDEW, yield was even higher in January, April and May with unusually strong winds and unseasonably sunny days pushing the share of renewables up as high as 43%.
If wind speeds in Q4 2018 are in line with the average from the last few years, renewables are expected to come very close to covering 38% of demand throughout the whole year.
“Renewables are definitely in the fast lane, while conventional energy sources’ contribution to covering gross electricity consumption is steadily declining,” said Stefan Kapferer , Chairman of BDEW’s General Executive Management Board.
“However, we still have a lot of work to do to achieve the goal of a 65 percent share of renewable power by 2030. It is imperative to keep this expansion from stalling.
As reported earlier , several German offshore wind organization issued a joint press release urging the government to ramp up its offshore wind energy game if it wants to achieve the goal of covering 65% of power generation with renewables by 2030, emphasizing that at least 30GW of offshore wind capacity must be installed.