Renewable energy accounted for a record-high 58% of Germany’s electricity consumption in the first half of 2026, up from 55.8% for the same period last year, the latest estimates by industry associations ZSW and BDEW showed on Wednesday.
Germany is looking to boost its solar and wind power generation sectors with ambitious goals and legislative changes to ease and streamline the permitting processes. Europe’s biggest economy has a target to install 10 gigawatts (GW) of wind power capacity every year to have renewables account for 80% of its electricity generation in 2030.
During the first half of this year, hydropower generation in Germany dropped by 7.7% from a year earlier, due to lower rainfalls, but power generation from both onshore and offshore wind surged compared to the low base with low wind speeds last year.
The rise in renewables generation was also due to newly installed solar PV and onshore wind capacities in the first half of 2026, the ZSW and BDEW associations said.
Germany installed 8.3 GW of new solar capacity in the first half, higher than last year’s level, and 2.5 GW of onshore wind capacity, up from 2.2 GW installed in the first half of 2025, the data from the industry bodies showed.
The associations urged Germany to speed up the adoption of amendments to legislation to create additional certainties for energy investors.
Wind power generation in Germany jumped by 27% in the first quarter of 2026 from a year earlier, an analysis of the Germany-based International Economic Forum for Renewable Energies (IWR) showed in April.
Higher capacity installations and wind speeds drove the rise in power generation from wind turbines. Germany added an estimated 5 GW of wind power turbines last year, boosting overall capacity, while wind speed conditions were more favorable early this year compared to the first half of 2025.
“The sharp increase in wind power generation has significantly eased the electricity market. Without this growth, Germany would have had to rely more heavily on comparatively expensive gas-fired power plants – with correspondingly higher stock exchange electricity prices,” Dr. Norbert Allnoch, chief executive of the IWR, commented in April.
By Michael Kern for Oilprice.com
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