Bundesnetzagentur publishes 2025 electricity market data
Year of issue 2026
Date of issue 2026.01.05
The Bundesnetzagentur has today published its electricity market data for 2025. The figures are based on data taken from SMARD, the Bundesnetzagentur’s electricity and gas market data platform.
Generation and consumption
Actual generation in 2025 amounted to 437.6 terawatt hours (TWh), almost the same as in 2024 (437.7 TWh).* Renewables accounted for 257.5 TWh or 58.8% of total generation, compared with 58.5% in 2024.**
Wind contributed the largest share of total generation among all energy sources. Offshore wind fed 26.1 TWh into the general supply network (2024: 25.7 TWh) and onshore wind 106.5 TWh (2024: 112.6 TWh). Solar generation contributed 74.1 TWh (2024: 63.2 TWh) and biomass 36.0 TWh (2024: 36.2 TWh).*** There was a significant increase in solar generation, primarily due to above-average levels of sunshine in the summer and growth in installed capacity.
Conventional generation was down 0.7% on the previous year to a total of 180.1 TWh.
Generation from hard coal was up 3.0% at 28.2 TWh, while generation from lignite was down 5.4% at 67.2 TWh.
Generation using natural gas was 6.4% higher at 60.6 TWh, representing a slight increase in the share of total generation to 13.8% (2024: 13.0%).
Wholesale electricity prices
The average day-ahead wholesale electricity price in 2025 was 89.32 euros per megawatt hour (€/MWh), up 13.8% on the previous year’s average of €78.51/MWh.
Negative wholesale prices were recorded in 573 out of a total of 8,760 hours in 2025, compared with 457 out of 8,784 hours in 2024. Prices above €300/MWh were recorded in 40 out of 8,760 hours in 2025, compared with 41 out of 8,784 hours in 2024. (The total number of hours in the two years is different because 2024 was a leap year.)
In 2024 the average price for a yearly product for delivery in 2025 (annual future) was about €88.70/MWh. This was almost the same as the average day-ahead price. In 2023 the average price for annual futures was €122.03/MWh and thus much higher than the actual average day-ahead wholesale price.
Cross-border electricity trade
In commercial foreign trade, Germany imported a total of 76.2 TWh of electricity (2024: 77.2 TWh) and exported 54.3 TWh (2024: 48.9 TWh). Imports were about 1.3% down and exports 11.1% up compared with 2024, resulting in a decrease of 22.6% in net imports to 21.9 TWh.
Electricity is usually imported whenever domestic production would be more expensive. There is an interaction between supply and demand across the whole of Europe. Electricity is produced within the European interconnected system wherever it is cheapest. Germany and the other European countries can all benefit from the most favourable conditions for generation in each case.
More key figures and explanations about the electricity market in 2025 are available on SMARD.de, the Bundesnetzagentur’s electricity and gas market data platform.
Data on the platform is provided by the German transmission system operators and may be updated on the basis of new findings.
*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.
**The share of total generation accounted for by 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. Initial calculations made by the Working Group on Renewable Energy Statistics (AGEE-Stat) at the German Environment Agency (UBA) in December 2024 put renewables’ share of gross electricity consumption at around 54%.
***In accordance with the legislative basis, only the electricity that these installations generate and feed into the general supply network is included. Electricity that is generated by private household solar installations and used by the households themselves is not included in the figure for actual generation on SMARD.