Electricity consumption (grid load) in Germany in the third quarter of 2026 totalled 110.1 TWh, up 1.1% on Q3 2025. The residual load – the proportion of electricity consumption that cannot be covered by wind and solar energy – was 47.8 TWh, down 15.8% on Q3 2025.

Strong growth in solar generation

There was an 11.0% rise in electricity fed into the general supply network from the third quarter of 2025 to 111.1 TWh. As in Q3 2025, of the individual energy sources, solar PV*** generated the most. It contributed 31.5 TWh, its highest ever output in a third quarter and its second strongest quarter ever. A monthly record was reached in all three months of the quarter, with the July figure of 12.0 TWh being the highest monthly PV generation ever recorded.

As well as the ongoing expansion of generating capacity, the unusually sunny weather was the main reason for the rise (DWD). The third quarter also saw a continuation of the trend that started in 2024 of the whole solar generation of the previous year being exceeded in September.

There was also more wind power than in the same quarter of last year. Electricity generated by offshore wind turbines was up 4% to 5.9 TWh, while onshore wind was up 16.8% to 24.9 TWh. In both cases, these figures were the highest ever for a third quarter. Electricity generated from hydropower, biomass and other renewable sources, on the other hand, registered a decline. The total proportion of renewables was 66.5%, slightly higher than the 65.0% of Q3 2025 and even just exceeding the 66.4% from the second quarter of 2026.

Among the conventional energy sources, the total electricity generated using lignite rose slightly by 1.5% to 15.4 TWh but its share of the total generation was down on the same quarter of the previous year. Hard coal saw the sharpest rise of 39.3% from Q3 2025 to 6.4 TWh.

Generation using natural gas, by contrast, was 8.1% lower at 8.9 TWh. This development was primarily caused by the Iran conflict pushing up gas wholesale prices by 91% compared with Q3 2025 to an average of €64.10/MWh in Q3 2026. This put gas-fired power plants below coal in the merit order more often.

Large increases in wholesale prices across Europe

The higher gas prices pushed up the wholesale electricity price as well, which rose 51.7% on the same quarter of last year to €125.51/MWh. Negative wholesale prices occurred in 675 of the 8,832 quarter-hours in Q3, compared with 544 quarter-hours in the same period of 2025. However, at negative €19/MWh, the lowest wholesale price paid was not as low as the negative €61.08/MWh from Q3 2025. 

On Monday 14 September 2026, the price for the 15-minute period between 7.45pm and 8.00pm was €740.01/MWh on the day-ahead market. At that time, wind turbines were hardly producing any electricity and the feed-in of solar power was also near zero, as is usual for the time of day. The grid load was 14.6 GWh but the total generation only 10.3 GWh. Pumped storage contributed about 1.2 GWh. Electricity generation was largely covered by lignite and natural gas, which meant that more expensive power plants were setting the price in the merit order. Wholesale prices in many of Germany’s neighbours were similarly high, so imports could only make a limited contribution to stabilising the prices.

Extremely high wholesale prices of more than €300/MWh were paid in a total of 79 15-minute periods in the past quarter, compared with 48 quarter-hours in Q3 2025.

However, the average wholesale electricity price in Germany climbed less strongly than in other European countries: in the neighbouring states, there was an average rise of 64.7% and wholesale prices only grew more slowly than in Germany in Poland (up 32.3%) and the Sweden 4 market area (up 50.5%). The price rises were particularly steep in the market areas Norway 2 (81.0%), Belgium (82.5%) and France (144.2%).

Rising fuel prices are affecting the entire internal market, almost regardless of the exact energy generation mix. Market coupling means that supply and demand are met internationally and wholesale prices thus tend to align.

Imports down, exports up

Electricity imports to Germany totalled 15.8 TWh in the third quarter of 2026, a decline of 22.7% on the same quarter of last year. Exports were up 39.2% to 16.8 TWh. Germany thus imported 1 TWh net in Q3.

Although the volume of electricity imported from Denmark was slightly lower at 3.9 TWh, the country still supplied the largest share of imports, as in the third quarter of 2025. It was followed by the Netherlands at 3.3 TWh (down 4.5%) and France at 2.4 TWh (down 37.4%). In Q3 2025, more electricity had been imported from France than from the Netherlands.

Germany exported the largest amount of electricity to Austria (3.0 TWh), followed by Denmark (almost 3.0 TWh) and the Netherlands (about 2.4 TWh). The largest increase in exports was to France, with a rise of 209.2% to 1.3 TWh. Average wholesale prices in France grew unusually strongly compared to the other neighbouring countries, so it made financial sense for French market players to buy electricity from Germany more often than in the third quarter of last year.

The proportion of renewable energies in imports was almost unchanged at 50.7%. As in Q3 2025, nuclear energy made up the largest share of the individual energy sources, followed by hydropower, but both of them recorded considerable decreases in both relative and absolute terms.
The proportion of exports made up by renewables rose slightly to 72.2%. The largest share was contributed by solar PV installations, as in the third quarter of 2025, which made up a much larger proportion of the total exports and a much larger actually exported volume. Most of the other energy sources grew in terms of exported volume but were a smaller share of total exports.

Information on how the energy mix of electricity imports and exports is calculated is available here.

Overview of commercial foreign trade (rounded figures)****:

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*The grid load share of electricity that was generated from renewables is calculated differently from the federal government’s target definitions for the expansion of renewable energy under the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG), where the basis for calculation is gross electricity consumption. The grid load does not include power stations’ own consumption or industrial networks, so the calculation basis applied here – compared with the share of gross electricity consumption – typically results in a higher proportion of generation from renewables. The grid load is calculated by taking the net electricity generation, subtracting transmission capacity exports, adding transmission capacity imports and subtracting the pumping work at pumped storage power stations.

**The actual generation is the net electricity generation. It is the electricity fed into the general supply network less the electricity consumed by power plants themselves. It does not include electricity generated in the Deutsche Bahn network or within industrial networks and closed distribution networks.

***Electricity that is generated by private household solar installations and used by the households themselves is not included in the figure for actual generation. Only the electricity that these installations generate and feed into the general supply network is included.

****As the methods for calculating the energy mix of electricity imports and exports differ slightly from the methods for calculating total imports and exports, the sum of the individual energy mix figures for a country may differ from the totals given here.
The figures presented in the charts and in the text may be updated at a later date. Further information about possible updates and data definitions is available (in German) in the user guide.