Last February was not only a turbulent month in political terms, but the weather also went crazy at times. In Germany, freezing cold was followed by masses of sunshine and warmth. There was no rain in many places and the wind hardly blew at all. “Our green energy production plants were not spared from the capricious weather“, says Patrick Lemcke-Braselmann, Co-CEO of aream Group SE.

At the beginning, February lived up to its meteorological status as the last month of winter: cold polar air brought frosty temperatures and snow to Germany. But then spring arrived straight away, and it became warm and sunny. According to the German Weather Service, the amount of sunshine in February exceeded the target of 72 hours (average for the period 1961 to 1990) by around 29 per cent with almost 93 hours. Precipitation remained sparse in many places and there was hardly any wind.

The unusual weather conditions had an impact on the production of aream’s asset portfolio. Photovoltaics fared well: ”Many hours of sunshine resulted in good yields, although these were reduced by curtailments of around 113 MWh”, explains Lemcke-Braselmann. Nevertheless, the bottom line was a target achievement of 98 per cent. The Spanish plants showed a stable performance with average irradiation; 92 per cent of the target was achieved. In Italy, on the other hand, the sun shone unusually rarely. The disappointing result of the photovoltaic assets (target achievement 54 per cent) was also due to the low production of the largest park, Montalto. ”The causes are still being analysed”, says Lemcke-Braselmann. 

For German wind turbines, on the other hand, the lull led to a catastrophic month. Production remained around 46 per cent below its target value. “Although there were no technical failures“, explains Lemcke-Braselmann, “there was also no wind.“ This was also reflected in the market electricity prices for onshore wind, which rose to an average of 11.591 cent/kWh in February. Although the price of photovoltaics fell slightly compared to January due to the high supply, it was still at a high level of 11.1 cents/kWh. However, there were no negative prices, which occur when too much electricity is fed into the system. This shows investors once again that the best way to deal with the unpredictability of the weather is to diversify their investments across different energy sources and locations.