Renewable energy in Germany

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At the end of 2006 renewable energy in Germany provided 11.9% of Germany's energy production. Since 1997, Germany and the other states of the European Union have been working towards a target of 12% renewable energy by 2010.

The following table shows the increases in production over recent years, and the percentage of national energy supply contributed by each in 2006 [1]:

Fuel type	2004	2005	2006	2006
Hydropower	21.7 GWh	20.8 GWh	21.6 GWh	3.5%
Wind power	25.5 GWh	27.2 GWh	30.5 GWh	5.0%
Biomass	8.4 GWh	11.2 GWh	15.5 GWh	2.5%
Landfill biogas	2.1 GWh	3.0 GWh	3.6 GWh	0.6%
Photovoltaic	0.6 GWh	1.3 GWh	2.0 GWh	0.3%
Total	58.3 GWh	63.5 GWh	73.2 GWh	11.9%

1 Wind power
2 Photovoltaic solar energy
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Wind power

See main article: Wind power in Germany

Germany is the world's largest user of wind power with an installed capacity of 20,621MW in 2006, ahead of Spain which had an installed capacity of 11,615MW.[2] More than 18,000 wind turbines are located in the German federal area and the country has plans to build more wind turbines.[3]

[edit] Photovoltaic solar energy

Completed in 2006, the 12 MW Solarpark Gut Erlasee photovoltaic system, near Arnstein in Bavaria, is currently the world's largest PV system [4]. The 10 MW Solarpark Bavaria in Germany was also the largest PV installation when completed in 2005, covering 25 hectares (62 acres) with 57,600 photovoltaic panels [5].

At the end of 2004, 79% of all European electricity production capacity from photovoltaic was in Germany, where 794 MWp had been installed. The European Commission anticipates that Germany may have installed around 4,500 MWp by 2010. [6].