Germany sets world record

Germany sets world record for monthly solar PV output at 5.1 TWh in July 2013

German PV production in July 2013 was 42% higher than a year prior

The German Federal Association of Electricity and Water (BDEW) reports that the nation's solar photovoltaic (PV) plants produced more than 5.1 TWh in July 2013, a new record for the nation and the world.
 

This represents a 19% increase over the previous record of 4.3 TWh in June 2013, and a 42% increase from July 2012. It is also nearly double the output of Italy in July 2013, which has the second-largest capacity of installed PV globally.

 

German beats Italy in percentage of power from PV
 

As BDEW has not supplied demand figures for July 2013, it is not known what percentage of German demand was met with PV. However, given historical demand figures it is clear that PV output exceeded 10% of demand, likely falling at 12-13% of demand during the month. This puts Germany at an even higher portion of demand met with PV generation than Italy in July 2013.
 

Wind only produced 1.7 TWh hours during the month, down 41% year-over-year, as fossil fuel generation increased 14%. The nation also exported 70 GWh of electricity during the month.
 

Certain times in the month featured particularly high solar output. PV plants produced 179-204 GWh each day in the third week of July, which represented from 14.2% to 21.5% of production on a daily basis.