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The rooftop segment maintained strong growth but utility scale PV saw a slowdown on previous months. In the first four months of 2020, newly deployed PV systems added up to 1,479.5 MW of generation capacity, compared with around 1.6 GW in the same period of last year. The nation’s cumulative PV capacity hit 50.46 GW at the end of April.

From pv magazine Germany.

The German PV market kept growing at an accelerated pace in April, despite the Covid-19 crisis.

Figures from federal network agency the Bundesnetzagentur indicate the month brought 379.9 MW of new solar capacity, the slight rise on recent monthly totals nevertheless marking the highest monthly return this year.

That took the new solar figure to 1,479.5 MW in the first four months of the year, compared with around 1.6 GW in the same period of last year, and Germany’s total to around 50.46 GW at the end of April. Federal minister of economics, Peter Altmaier, has said the 52 GW cap on solar which would automatically halt subsidy payments will be removed before the milestone is reached.

Rooftop PV financed by a national feed-in tariff (FIT) program continued to be the driver of growth, with 318 MW of new capacity in April, indicating little impact from the public health crisis on demand for residential and commercial rooftop solar thus far.

By contrast, only 23 MW of utility scale solar was added in April.

The volumes of solar plugged in were again due to trigger a 1.4% reduction in FIT payment levels this month, as occurred in February.