Germany Logged Fewer Negative-Price Hours This Year Despite 21% More Solar

German solar plants fed 76.2 TWh into the public grid between January and September 2026, up from 63.0 TWh in the same months of 2025. Over the same period the DE-LU day-ahead price was negative for 463.25 hours, down from 525. Both figures are TEI calculations from Bundesnetzagentur SMARD price and generation data; the 2026 count adds up negative quarter-hours, since the day-ahead auction moved to 15-minute products on 1 October 2025.

Most of the drop came in May and June, which together had 141.5 fewer negative hours than a year earlier even though solar output in both months was higher. April and July moved the other way. When prices did go negative they went further: the average negative price was minus €16.83/MWh against minus €11.84/MWh, and the market cleared at minus €499.99/MWh for more than an hour on 1 May.

In the periods with negative prices, German net exports averaged 9.5 GW this year against 7.0 GW in 2025, and pumped-storage pumping rose slightly. Solar's volume-weighted spot price came to €55.70/MWh, 51.7% of the baseload average, up from 47.7% last year.

Since the Solarspitzengesetz took effect in February 2025, section 51 of the Renewable Energy Sources Act cuts support to zero in every negative-price period for plants it covers, and section 51a extends their support period in compensation. Our analysis works through what this year's 1,853 negative quarter-hours would mean for that extension, and what the data can and cannot say about why the count fell.