Renewables’ share of generation at 59

The total amount of electricity generated in 2024 was 431.7 TWh, down 4.2% on the previous year (450.5 TWh).* Renewables accounted for 59.0% (254.9 TWh) of total generation, compared to 56.0% in 2023.

Onshore wind had the highest share among all the energy sources, at 25.9% of total generation. Generation from onshore wind was down 5.8% to 111.9 TWh as it was less windy in 2024 than the year before. The largest increase in generation in 2024 was from solar, at 63.3 TWh compared to 55.7 TWh in 2023. This was due to the increase in installed net rated capacity and to unusually high levels of sunshine in the summer (Deutscher Wetterdienst).

Conventional generation was down 10.9% on the previous year to 176.8 TWh. Generation from lignite was 8.8% lower at 71.0 TWh and from hard coal 31.2% lower at 27.3 TWh. By contrast, generation using natural gas was 8.6% higher at 56.9 TWh, accounting for 13.2% of total generation. Generation by gas benefited from the decrease in prices, with an average day-ahead wholesale price of €34.80/MWh, slightly lower than the previous year’s figure of €41.00/MWh (BNetzA).

2024 was the first full year without any contribution from nuclear energy to Germany’s total generation. In 2023 the electricity generated by the last remaining nuclear power plants before they were taken off the grid in April amounted to 1.5% of the year’s total generation. In 2022, the last full year before the closure of the last nuclear plants, nuclear generation had a share of 6.7%.

Electricity consumption (grid load) increased by 0.9% to 462.5 TWh.** This grid load does not include the amount of electricity that is generated by private installations and not fed into the grid, for instance the electricity that a private household generates with its own solar installation and uses itself.

Wholesale prices

The average day-ahead wholesale electricity price in 2024 was €78.51/MWh, 17.5% down on the previous year’s average of €95.18/MWh. This decrease is due among other things to the increase in renewables’ share of total generation and to the slight fall in gas prices. In addition, the average wholesale price in Germany’s neighbouring countries was €71.44/MWh, slightly lower than the price in Germany. This meant that it made financial sense more often for Germany to buy cheaper electricity on the European internal market. In 2023 the average wholesale price in Germany’s neighbouring countries was €93.13/MWh, nearly the same as in Germany.

Negative wholesale prices were recorded in 457 out of a total of 8,784 hours in 2024, compared to 301 out of 8,760 hours in 2023 (the total number of hours is different because 2024 was a leap year).

Particularly high prices (above €100/MWh) were recorded in 2,296 out of 8,784 hours, nearly half as many as in the previous year with 4,106 out of 8,760 hours. This significant decrease also had a positive effect on the average wholesale prices.

The highest wholesale price of the year was recorded between 5pm and 6pm on Thursday 12 December and was €936.28/MWh.*** During this hour, there was a typically high winter weekday evening level of consumption of 66.8 GWh, while total generation from solar and wind was particularly low (1.4 GWh).

The average wholesale price in Germany’s neighbouring countries in that hour was €664/MWh and considerably lower than the price in Germany, which meant that it made economic sense to import electricity.

Commercial foreign trade

Germany imported 67.0 TWh of electricity in 2024, up 23.2% on the previous year’s figure of 54.3 TWh. The country supplying the largest of amount of electricity to Germany was France, with 15.8 TWh; Denmark, which had supplied the largest amount (13.3 TWh) in 2023, supplied 15.1 TWh. Both countries’ average wholesale prices, €58.02/MWh in France and €70.75/MWh in Denmark, were lower than Germany’s prices. In 2023 the average price for electricity in Denmark (€84.04/MWh) was lower than in France (€96.86).

Germany’s electricity exports were down 10.1% to 35.1 TWh. Germany again exported the largest amount of electricity (9.2 TWh) to Austria (2023: 8.5 TWh). Austria’s wholesale prices (€102.14/MWh) were already higher than Germany’s in 2023. While the two countries’ prices were more similar in 2024, Austria’s average was still slightly higher (€81.54/MWh).

Renewables account for a large share of electricity exports because the European internal electricity market makes it possible for countries to buy electricity primarily from wherever it is cheapest to generate and so frequently from countries producing more electricity from renewable sources than they are consuming. This benefits both importing and exporting countries as it reduces the costs across the whole system and the amount of carbon dioxide produced as well as the amount of renewable electricity that has to be curtailed because of over-supply.

Further information about the energy mix of electricity imports and exports is available in the Energy data compact section.

In 2023 the amount of electricity that Germany had imported was 15.3 TWh higher than the amount it had exported. This figure rose in 2024 to 31.9 TWh. In 2024 Germany’s average price for electricity was 9.9% higher than the price in its neighbouring countries, compared to 2.2% in 2023. It therefore made financial sense more often in 2024 for Germany to import electricity at lower prices than to generate electricity at higher prices.

An overview of Germany’s commercial foreign trade in electricity in 2024:

• Belgium:
  exports: 1,779.2 GWh, imports: 4,515.8 GWh
• Denmark 1:
  exports: 2,159.3 GWh, imports: 11,010.3 GWh
• Denmark 2:
  exports: 974.6 GWh, imports: 4,063.8 GWh
• France:
  exports: 2,852.2 GWh, imports: 15,752.6 GWh
• Netherlands:
  exports: 3,864.6 GWh, imports: 6,342.2 GWh
• Norway:
  exports: 1,241.0 GWh, imports: 7,043.6 GWh
• Austria:
  exports: 9,167.5 GWh, imports: 1,770.7 GWh
• Poland:
  exports: 5,109.2 GWh, imports: 1,604.5 GWh
• Sweden:
  exports: 386.5 GWh, imports: 2,992.7 GWh
• Switzerland:
  exports: 2,817.3 GWh, imports: 9,918.8 GWh
• Czechia:
  exports: 4,729.8 GWh, imports: 1,932.9 GWh.

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*The actual generation is the net electricity generation. It is the electricity fed into the general supply network less the electricity consumed by power plants themselves. It does not include electricity generated in the Deutsche Bahn network or within industrial networks and closed distribution networks.

**The grid load share of electricity that was generated from renewables is calculated differently from the federal government’s target definitions for the expansion of renewable energy under the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), where the basis for calculation is gross electricity consumption. The grid load does not include power stations’ own consumption or industrial networks, so the calculation basis applied here – compared with the share of gross electricity consumption – typically results in a higher proportion of generation from renewables. The grid load is calculated by taking the net electricity generation, subtracting transmission capacity exports, adding transmission capacity imports and subtracting the pumping work at pumped storage power stations.

***On 25 June 2024 the EPEX Spot exchange experienced technical problems, resulting in an outage in market coupling in day-ahead trading for the delivery day of 26 June at times and an increase in prices up to as much as €2,325.83/MWh. These prices were not visible on the SMARD website as ENTSO-E reported the German prices on the EXAA and Nord Pool exchanges, which were not affected.

The figures presented in the charts and in the text may be updated at a later date. Further information about possible updates and data definitions is available (in German) in the user guide.