Renewables provide 49% of power used in Germany

Renewable energy accounted for 49per cent of German power consumption in the first half of 2022, up 6per cent percentage points from a year earlier thanks to favourable weather conditions, industry groups said on Tuesday.

Both higher sunshine intensity and wind speeds were behind the trend, utility industry association BDEW and the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research (ZSW) said in a statement.

The preliminary figures were calculated under European Union requirements that base market share of individual electricity sources on usage rather than production, a basis also adopted by Berlin for its climate target definitions, they said.

The share of renewables in German power consumption hit 50.2per cent in the first half of 2020.

Germany's power consumption overall declined by 0.8per cent to 281 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) in the first six months of 2022.

Domestic electricity production, meanwhile, rose 1.7per cent to 298 billion kWh, boosting Germany's role as a net exporter of power, the data showed.

Renewable generation, which along with wind includes solar, hydro, biomass, waste and geothermal energy, contributed 139 billion kWh to the total, up 13.5per cent from a year earlier.