Sun and wind supplied Germany with significantly more electricity in 2022 than in the previous year. This is what Fraunhofer ISE reports on public net electricity generation for 2022.
Due to Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, more coal was generated than in the previous year, as expected. However, the share of renewable energies in the electricity mix did not decrease, but increased from 45.6 to 49.5 percent. Energy exports did not collapse either, but increased again.
Strong solar year
According to this, photovoltaic systems generated around 57.6 terawatt hours (TWh) of electricity in 2022. Most of this (52.6 TWh) was fed into the public grid and 5 TWh was consumed by the company itself. Production increased by around 9.2 TWh compared to the previous year, which is an increase of 19 percent. Installed PV capacity was around 65.5 gigawatts (GW) at the end of November. By November last year, the addition was around 6.1 GW.
The peak day for solar energy generation was reached on July 17, 2022 in Germany. At that time, solar energy accounted for 84 percent of all electricity generation.
Wind power plants also produced more electricity in 2022 than in the previous year. The increase compared to 2021 was around 10.4 percent, the total production was around 123.3 TWh. Wind energy was once again the strongest energy source of the year, followed by lignite, solar, hard coal, natural gas, biomass, nuclear energy and hydropower.
At the end of October 2021, the installed capacity of onshore wind was 57.9 gigawatts and 7.98 GW of offshore wind. The maximum generated power was reached early in the year, on February 20, 2022, and was approximately 47.7 GW at 8:15 p.m.
Hydropower contributed around 3 terawatt hours less to net electricity generation in 2022 compared to the previous year – instead of 19TWh in 2021, it only generated 16 TWh. The installed capacity has hardly changed. Little changed in biomass in 2022 either. It generated around 42.2 TWh after only a slight increase, here too with almost unchanged installed capacity.
In total, the renewable energy sources solar, wind, water and biomass produced around 244 TWh in 2022. They were thus 8 percent above the level of the previous year with 226 TWh.
“The graphic shows the net electricity generation from power plants for public electricity supply. This is the electricity mix that actually comes out of the socket. The generation from power plants of “businesses in the manufacturing industry and in mining and quarrying”, i.e. the industrial Generation for own consumption is not taken into account in this presentation.”
Halved nuclear power, coal demanded
Nuclear power output in Germany was halved in 2021 due to the planned shutdowns of the Brokdorf, Grohnde and Gundremmingen C nuclear power plants on December 31, 2021. The remaining nuclear power plants still produced 32.8TWh.
Lignite made a small comeback as a result of the war-related energy crisis and contributed around 8 terawatt hours more than in 2021. Overall, annual production was 107 TWh net. The same applies to hard coal. Around 9 TWh more was produced here than in the previous year, a total of 56 TWh in 2022.
More gas for industrial use
As expected, electricity generation from gas-fired power plants fell. They produced 47 TWh net for the public electricity supply. This means that production was 5 TWh below the level of the previous year. However, the report points out that the total net electricity generation includes not only public net electricity generation, but also “own generation by industrial and commercial companies”. According to the report, this is “mainly done with gas”. The report also explains: “In addition to the power plants for public power supply, there are also gas-fired power plants in mining and in the processing industry for self-sufficiency. These also produced around 41 TWh for industrial self-consumption, which is not taken into account in this publication.”
The graphic shows the net electricity generation from power plants for public electricity supply. This is the “electricity mix that actually comes out of the socket. The generation from power plants of “companies in the processing industry as well as in mining and in the quarrying of stone and earth”, ie the industrial generation for own consumption, is not taken into account in this representation .”
Note the coal and gas bar: “The graph shows total net electricity production. This is the sum of net public electricity production and production by ‘manufacturing and mining and quarrying operations’ for own use. “
The share of renewable energies in the total net electricity generation, including the power plants of the “companies in the processing industry as well as in mining and in the quarrying of stone and earth” is accordingly approx. 44.5 percent compared to 41 percent in 2021.
More exported than imported
The export surplus in electricity trading was around 26 terawatt hours. That is 9 TWh more than in 2021. Austria and France were the largest consumers (16 TWh and 15.3 TWh), followed by Switzerland and Luxembourg (6.6 TWh and 3.9 TWh). For its part, Germany imported electricity from Denmark (10.3 TWh), Norway (3.7 TWh) and Sweden (3.1 TWh).
“Germany: 49.5 TWh imports; 75.8 TWh exports; balance: 26.3 TWh exports”
The report by Prof. Dr. Bruno Burger for Fraunhofer ISE also states that “due to the high electricity prices and the higher temperatures, there was probably a significant saving in electricity”. The load in the power grid fell by around 20TWh to 484.
The price of electricity on the exchange was about 2.5 times higher than in 2021. On average, it was 230.58 euros/MWh or 23.058 cents/kWh (volume-weighted day-ahead exchange electricity price). In 2021, 93.35 euros/MWh were called here, in 2019 it was 36.65 euros/MWh.
German net electricity generation from 2002 to 2022
Net versus gross electricity production
Burger explains on net electricity production, the basis of his report is: “When using net sizes, a power plant’s self-consumption is supplied directly from the gross electricity production of the power station. The difference between gross electricity production and self-consumption is the net electricity production that is fed into the grid. According to this convention For example, a coal mill in a lignite-fired power plant is supplied directly from the electricity generated by the power plant and is therefore operated exclusively with lignite-based electricity.” The entire electricity industry calculates with net values, for example for “electricity trading, grid calculations, grid utilization, power plant deployment planning, etc.”. The public net electricity generation represents the electricity mix that actually comes out of the socket at home and that is consumed in the household. Electric vehicles, for example, can also be charged publicly with this. Gross figures are “only collected for statistical purposes, but are not used in day-to-day electricity management”.
(kbe)
