Solar power keeps growing year after year and month after month in countries around the world. So, naturally, as the Northern Hemisphere goes into summer and days get longer, countries are starting to set new solar power generation records. For example, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, and Portugal ended May with a bang, setting new daily solar generation records. AleaSoft Energy Forecasting found the following new records were set: Germany — 503 GWh on May 28 Spain — 265 GWh on May 29 France — 179 GWh on May 28 Italy — 161 GWh on May 26 Portugal — 32 GWh on May 29 “The milestones represent another record-breaking week for solar production in Europe after France, Germany, Italy and Portugal all set new solar records for a day in May the week prior,” pv magazine shares. Additionally, “AleaSoft’s analysis of electricity prices found the weekly average electricity price decreased last week across the Belgian, British, Dutch, German and Nordic markets, which it attributes to higher solar and wind energy production, as well as lower electricity demand.” Again, this is nothing new — we know that solar and wind power bring down wholesale electricity prices, if not also retail prices. Though, not all of these markets saw price drops. “Despite their daily solar records, France, Portugal and Spain, alongside Italy, saw a week-on-week increase in their average electricity price, which AleaSoft says was caused by a drop in wind energy production and higher demand.” Solar and wind tend to complement each other very well. Best is when they are both producing at high volumes, but it’s also very helpful that one tends to step up when the other one drops.
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