EEG Solar Costs

What does solar power cost the EEG account?

Payments to PV plants under the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), from the transmission system operators' billing. As the operators sell the power from plants on the fixed tariff, what the EEG account bears is the net cost, not the full payments. Years without billing data are modelled and marked as such.

Next cohort exit · 31 December 20262006 cohort · €371 m paid in 2025
Resolution
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Group commissioning years by
Payments€176.7 bnGermany · 2000–2026 · modelled: 2001, 2026
Net cost€129.8 bnonly years from 2012, when a market value exists
Energy paid for696.9 TWhfixed tariff and market premium
Avg. fixed tariff31.4 ct/kWhpaid per kWh under the fixed feed-in tariff
Plants paid3.84 mGermany, with payments in 2025

Payments per year by commissioning year

Billed amounts per calendar year from the TSOs' annual statements; hatched years are modelled.
2025Payments: €10.7 bnNet cost: €8.94 bnmarket value 4.51 ct/kWhBilled totalsEEG 2000 €860 kEEG 2004 €2.11 bnEEG 2009 €5.58 bnPV amendment 2012 €1.27 bnEEG 2014 €129 mEEG 2017 €476 mEEG 2021 €263 mEEG 2023 €874 m
EEG 2000 2000–2003EEG 2004 2004–2008EEG 2009 2009–2011PV amendment 2012 2012–2014EEG 2014 2015–2016EEG 2017 2017–2020EEG 2021 2021–2022EEG 2023 2023–2026Hatched = modelled, not billed

Net cost = payments minus the market value of the fixed-tariff energy the TSOs sell; market-premium plants sell their own power, so the premium counts in full. Market value: the Jahresmarktwert Solar (Anlage 1 Nr. 5 EEG), the spot price weighted by the TSOs' projection of solar output, computed from the TSOs' published data; none before 2012, when the data start. Modelled years after 2025 use the 2025 value. The split by commissioning year is modelled for every year except 2025, from what each cohort was paid in 2025; the yearly totals are the billed ones. This assumes the cohorts stood in the same proportion to each other as in 2025: moves from the fixed tariff to the market premium, ageing and self-consumption since then are not captured. Commissioning years are grouped by the EEG version in force on 1 July.

Who receives the money: payments 2025 by commissioning year

Older plants get far higher tariffs per kWh; the boom years 2009–2011 still dominate.
2006€371 m

Data coverage

Which numbers are billed and which are estimated.
Billed yearly totals (TSOs)
2002–2025
Per-plant billing
2025
Modelled years
2001, 2026
Payments matched to MaStR plants
99.65%
Per-plant sum vs. official total 2025
−0.16%
2000 has no breakdown by energy source; 2001 gives energy only, priced at the EEG 2000 rate.How the numbers are checked