The branch association supports this increase, but it advocates a European green-certificate system that could lead to a more efficient and more market-oriented renewable energy market.

Renewable electricity generation increased by 13% in the first six months of this year, to 31 billion kWh, compared with the same period in 2004. The leading renewable source is wind power, as it generated 15.1 billion kWh in the first half of this year, an increase of 19%. According to the VDEW this increase of wind power is mainly due to the fact that German authorities favourably view the expansion of wind parks.

Photovoltaics saw the biggest relative increase of 50%, but it still only generated 0.3 billion kWh. Hydro rose by 5% to 11.5 billion kWh and generation from biomass increased by 17% to 4.1 billion kWh.

For more information, see also http://www.strom.de/