German Green Power Capacity Seen Rising 23% by 2019

Germany's renewable energy power capacity is set to rise by 23 percent between 2015 and 2019, while related costs rise by over a fifth, data from its transmission grid firms showed on Friday.

The annually released data showed progress in the planned move to a low-carbon economy but also illustrated the cost to society in the debate over the future of green power subsidies.

Green power accounted for 28.5 percent of all power consumed in Germany in the first half of 2014.

The four transmission system operators are required to provide the calculations to help gauge the cost of subsidies to the expanding renewable sector, which are added to energy bills as a surcharge.

But consumers' rising bill have recently led to reforms that curb incentives and set caps on the expansion.

According to the data, operators are estimated to increase the installed capacity of renewables to 112 gigawatts (GW) in 2019 from 91 GW in 2015.

Out of the 2019 total, onshore wind power capacity would account for 50 GW, offshore wind power 6 GW, solar power 47 GW, and the rest would be hydro, biomass and geothermal energy.

Under German law, green power must be fed into the grid and accrue above-market rates in a system mainly administered by the grid operators. The priority access given to renewable power has slashed the market share and earnings of Germany's traditional utilities.

The capacity envisaged for 2019 would probably generate 208 terawatt hours (TWh) of power in that year, which is 29 percent more than the 161 TWh estimated for 2015 and compares with about 140 TWh in 2014, the operators said.

Taxpayers in 2019 would pay roughly 28 billion euros ($35 billion) to renewable power firms, compared with 23 billion euros in 2015. Of this, some 12 billion would be paid directly and 16 billion to those marketing their green power themselves, the figures showed.

Subsidies levied on German consumers to support green power will fall by 1.1 percent next year to 6.17 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh), the grid firms said last month.

On Friday they estimated the surcharge for 2016 would remain stable in a range of 5.7 to 7.3 cents.

(1 US dollar = 0.8053 euro)

(By Vera Eckert; editing by Jane Baird)