Solar was Germany's largest source of electricity in the third quarter of 2026, according to the quarterly evaluation by the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) reported by pv magazine Deutschland. PV systems fed 31.5 TWh into the grid between July and September, compared with 25.7 TWh in the same quarter last year.
A record summer for solar
Each of the three months set a new high for its time of year, and July's 12.0 TWh was the highest monthly solar feed-in ever recorded in Germany. The regulator attributes the jump to new capacity additions and above-average sunshine.
Solar's share of total generation rose to 28.4%, from 25.6% a year earlier. Onshore wind followed with 22.4%, lignite with 13.9% and gas with 8.1%. Total feed-in grew by 11% to 111.1 TWh, while grid consumption rose by about 1% to 110.1 TWh. Residual load, the demand left after renewables, fell by 15.8% to 47.8 TWh.
Gas prices push coal back up
The quarter was not simply a story of clean power. Gas wholesale prices were almost double their level of a year earlier because of the Iran conflict. As a result, gas plants often ranked behind coal plants in the merit order. Hard coal output rose by nearly 40% year on year, while gas feed-in fell by just over 8%.
Higher fuel costs pushed the average day-ahead power price up by 51.7% to EUR 125.51/MWh. The number of quarter-hours with prices above EUR 300/MWh rose to 79, from 48 a year earlier. The highest price, just over EUR 740/MWh, came in the 19:45 to 20:00 slot on Monday, September 14, after the sun had set.
More negative prices at midday
At the other end of the scale, prices were negative in 675 of the quarter's 8,832 quarter-hours, up from 544 a year earlier. The lowest price was minus EUR 19.00/MWh, compared with minus EUR 61.08/MWh in the third quarter of 2025.
Prices rose even more in neighbouring markets. The average wholesale price increased by 144% in France, 83% in Belgium and 72% in Austria. Germany exported 16.8 TWh, up 39.2%, and imported 15.8 TWh, down 22.7%, leaving net exports of 1.0 TWh.
What it means for European developers
The figures show both sides of Europe's solar boom. Solar is now the backbone of summer supply in the continent's largest market, but its output is concentrated in the middle of the day. That creates more negative prices at noon and very high prices in the evening, when gas and coal still set the price. For developers, the business case increasingly depends on shifting solar power into the evening, through co-located batteries, flexible demand and hybrid power purchase agreements. Projects that can only sell at midday face growing price risk.
Source: pv magazine Deutschland, based on the Bundesnetzagentur quarterly evaluation.
