This year, Germany’s demand for solar power systems will grow by double-digit percentage figures for the seventh year in a row, while the demand for solar batteries will grow exponentially for the fifth year on end. This is according to the latest forecast by the German Solar Association (BSW), published on Tuesday, the day before the international solar and storage exhibitions Intersolar and EES Europe that are taking place in Munich. The exhibitions are expected to see a record-breaking number of 85,000 visitors.
This year, Germany’s demand for solar power systems will grow by double-digit percentage figures for the seventh year in a row, while the demand for solar batteries will grow exponentially for the fifth year on end. This is according to the latest forecast by the German Solar Association (BSW), published on Tuesday, the day before the international solar and storage exhibitions Intersolar and EES Europe that are taking place in Munich. The exhibitions are expected to see a record-breaking number of 85,000 visitors.
One of the key drivers of the energy transition in recent years, in addition to the increasing number and size of solar parks being built, has been the use of PV and storage technology among private property owners. The demand for photovoltaic and solar storage systems in that sector has more than tripled between 2019 and 2022 in Germany. This follows from an analysis of the core energy market data register published by the Bundesnetzagentur.
By now, some 77 percent of property owners can imagine purchasing a solar energy system to generate electricity and/or heat, while more than one in five homeowners are already planning to do so within the next 12 months. This was one of the findings of a representative YouGov survey commissioned by BSW in late May.
“Almost all signs continue to point to growth: Solar power systems are inexpensive, the number of skilled technicians is on the rise, the supply situation is improving and market barriers are increasingly being removed,” explains Carsten Körnig, Managing Director of BSW. He identifies risks to this growth trajectory in the increased financing costs due to high interest rates, as well as in any potential changes to these positive developments.
The latest market figures also point to further growth: In the home segment alone, around 159,000 PV systems went into operation in the first quarter – more than twice as many as in the same period last year (an increase of 146%). BSW expects that by the end of June the number of newly installed solar power storage systems will exceed the number of solar battery systems installed in the entire year of 2022.
Meanwhile, in late May, the Bundesnetzagentur announced that the country’s three millionth solar power system became operational. The annual solar power harvest from installed PV systems is sufficient to cover over ten percent of the country’s domestic electricity requirements with environmentally friendly technology. Following decisions adopted by the current coalition of FDP, SPD and the Greens (“Traffic Light Coalition”), that share is set to increase to over 25% by 2030. The implementation of a PV strategy passed by Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action Robert Habeck in May of this year is intended to remove remaining market barriers. At the same time, the estimated 800,000 home solar storage systems installed in Germany can, in purely mathematical terms, store enough energy to cover the daily consumption of all private households in the city of Munich.
More and more tenants also want to benefit directly from the energy transition and are purchasing so-called plug-in solar devices, or balcony power plants. In this sector, demand has even increased by three-digit percentage points during the last year.
Editorial note: On 14 June 2023 at 10:30 a.m., to mark the opening of the exhibitions, BSW will hold a hybrid press conference detailing developments in the solar market. Please visit the following link for registration and log-in data: https://bsw.li/3P6DkOE
Up-to-date press graphics on market developments in the PV and storage sectors can be found in the BSW Media Library: /presse/mediathek/
