This report presents data on German net electricity generation for public electricity supply.

Renewable energies: solar and wind

Photovoltaic systems generated approx. 59.9 TWh of electricity in 2023. Of this, approx. 53.5 TWh was fed into the public grid and 6.4 TWh was consumed. Total production increased by approx. 1 TWh or 1.4% compared to the previous year. Installed PV capacity totalled 80.7 GW at the end of November. Additions in 2023 up to November totalled approx. 13.2 GW. The maximum solar power fed into the grid was approx. 40.1 GW on 7 July 2023 at 13:15. The maximum share of solar energy in total electricity generation at this time was 68% and the maximum share of total daily energy from all electricity sources was 36.8%.

Wind power plants produced approx. 139.8 TWh in 2023 and were approx. 14.1% higher than production in 2022. Wind energy was once again the strongest energy source of the year, followed by lignite, solar, natural gas, biomass, hard coal, hydropower and nuclear energy. The maximum wind power generated was approx. 53 GW on 21 December 2023 at 11:00 a.m. The share of onshore wind amounted to approx. 115.3 TWh and offshore wind generated approx. 23.5 TWh. At the end of November 2023, the installed capacity of onshore wind was 60.5 GW and offshore wind 8.4 GW.

Renewable energies: Hydropower and biomass

Die Hydropower produzierte ca. 19,5 TWh gegenüber 16,3 TWh in 2022. Die installierte Leistung liegt bei ca. 4,94 GW. Sie hat sich gegenüber den Vorjahren kaum verändert.

Approx. 42.3 TWh were produced from biomass. Production is therefore 1.3 TWh lower than in 2022, with installed capacity totalling 9 GW.

In total, the renewable energy sources solar, wind, water and biomass produced approx. 260 TWh in 2023. This is 7.2% above the previous year's level of 242 TWh. The share of renewable energy fed into the public electricity grid in Germany in relation to the load, i.e. the electricity mix that actually comes out of the socket, was 56.9% compared to 50.2% in 2022.

In addition to net public electricity generation, total net electricity generation also includes solar self-consumption and self- generation by industrial and commercial enterprises. This is mainly generated using gas.

The share of renewable energies in total net electricity generation, including the power plants of "businesses in the manufacturing, mining and quarrying sectors", is around 54.9% compared to 45.5% in 2022.

Non-renewable generation

Die Nuclear power plants generated 6.7 TWh of electricity in straight-line operation until their shutdown on 15 April 2023.

Lignite-fired power plants produced 77.5 TWh net for public electricity consumption and 3.7 TWh for industrial own consumption. This is 26.8 TWh less than in 2022. Gross electricity generation fell to the level of 1963.

Net production from hard coal-fired power plants for public electricity consumption totalled 36.1 TWh and 0.7 TWh for industrial own consumption. It was 21.4 TWh lower than in 2022. Gross electricity generation fell to the level of 1955.

Gas-fired power plants produced 45.8 TWh net for public electricity supply and 29.6 for industrial own consumption. This was 1.1 TWh below the previous year's level.

Lignite and hard coal-fired power plants generated more electricity than usual in 2022 due to the outage of many French nuclear power plants and high gas prices. The situation on the electricity market eased again in 2023, which led to a sharp reduction in coal-fired power generation.

Export surplus

In 2023, Germany had a net import surplus of around 11.7 TWh in cross border electricity trading (planned or scheduled). The main reason for the imports was low electricity prices in neighbouring countries in the summer. The majority of imports came from Denmark (10.7 TWh), Norway (4.6 TWh) and Sweden (2.9 TWh). Germany exported electricity to Austria (5.8 TWh) and Luxembourg (3.6 TWh).

In 2022, a lot of electricity was still produced for export due to high exchange electricity prices, resulting in an export surplus of 27 TWh.

The cross border physical flows show an import surplus of 8.6 TWh compared to an export surplus of 27.5 TWh in 2022. The physical electricity flows do not provide any information on whether the electricity was actually consumed in the country or whether it was forwarded to neighbouring countries as transit electricity. It therefore makes little sense to analyse the individual countries here.

Load, exchange electricity prices and market values

The load on the electricity grid was 457 TWh. This is around 26 TWh less than in 2022. Due to the high electricity prices and higher temperatures, electricity was probably saved significantly. Added to this is the increase in self-consumption of solar power, which also reduces the load.

The load includes electricity consumption and grid losses, but not pumped electricity consumption, self-consumption by conventional power plants and self-consumption by solar power plants.

The average volume-weighted day-ahead exchange electricity price was €92.29/MWh or 9.23 cents/kWh. This is significantly less than in 2022 (€230.57/MWh) and is almost exactly the same as in 2021 (€93.36/MWh).

The average volume-weighted intraday hourly price was €97.92/MWh or 9.79 cents/kWh. In 2022 it was € 232.55/MWh and in 2021 € 99.90/MWh.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, 2020 should not be used for price comparisons.

Appendix and explanations

Version History

The first version of the 2023 annual evaluation from 10 January 2024 takes into account all electricity generation data from the Leipzig electricity exchange EEX up to and including 31 December 2023. The quarter-hourly values from EEX and Entsoe were energetically corrected using the available monthly data from the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on electricity generation up to and including September 2023 and the monthly data on electricity imports and exports up to and including October 2023. For the remaining months, the correction factors were estimated on the basis of past annual data. The extrapolated values are subject to larger tolerances.

Difference between net and gross electricity generation

This report presents data on German net electricity generation for public electricity supply. When using net figures, a power plant's own consumption is supplied directly from the power plant's gross electricity generation. The difference between gross electricity generation and own consumption is the net electricity generation that is fed into the grid. According to this convention, a coal mill in a lignite-fired power plant, for example, 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 figures, e.g. for electricity trading, grid calculation, grid utilisation, power plant deployment planning, etc.

Only net electricity generation is traded on the German electricity exchange EEX, the transmission system operators calculate with net flows, Entsoe only provides net figures and only net figures are measured for cross-border electricity flows.

Public net electricity generation represents the electricity mix that actually comes out of the socket at home and is consumed in the household or used to charge electric vehicles in public. The electricity meter in the home measures the net electricity that is consumed or fed into the grid.

Gross electricity generation also includes the power plants' own consumption, which is used directly in the power plant and is not physically fed into the public electricity grid. On the consumption side, the power plants' own consumption is added to the gross electricity consumption so that the balance is correct again. According to this convention, a coal mill in a lignite-fired power plant, for example, is operated with the gross electricity mix and thus with approx. 45% renewable energies.

In addition, the gross electricity generation also includes the electricity generated by industry itself, the so-called "companies in the manufacturing industry and in mining and quarrying". This in-house generation is consumed directly by the companies and is not fed into the public grid. Gross figures are only collected for statistical purposes, but are not used in the daily electricity industry.

The data on net public electricity generation and total gross electricity generation differ significantly. This also results in significantly different shares of renewable energies in electricity generation and electricity consumption.

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You can also find slides for the 2023 annual evaluation in our download area: Download

Link to the press release of 15.01.2024: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/press-media/press-releases/2024/public-electricity-generation-2023-renewable-energies-cover-the-majority-of-german-electricity-consumption-for-the-first-time.html

1 TWh = 1 Terawattstunde = 1000 Gigawattstunden (GWh) = 1 Million Megawattstunden (MWh) = 1 Milliarde Kilowattstunden (kWh)