FRANKFURT: Germany exported a net 13.9 terawatt hours (TWh) in power in the first nine months of 2012, almost ten times more than in the same period a year earlier, preliminary data from industry association BDEW showed on Monday.
Germany sent 47.8 terawatt hours of electricity abroad by the end of September compared to deliveries of 33.9 terawatt hours, the figures from BDEW showed.
The net export figure contrasted to a surplus of just 1.6 TWh, recorded by BDEW a year earlier, when Germany's accelerated nuclear exit had hit its ability to export.
BDEW cautioned that the figures represented all recorded cross-border flows on the power lines, regardless of whether the power had been commercially bought or sold.
Power physically needs to be absorbed by grids as it cannot be stored, which means that sometimes excessive power circles around unsold on European interconnectors at times of high output and little demand.
The totals also included transit shipments inside Europe, where Germany is in central position and share borders with nine countries which increasingly trade power with each other.
The BDEW said the necessity for German generation plants to provide for enough spare production to deal with demand spikes partly explained the trend.
"German operators have to have sufficient capacity ready to ensure security of supply," a spokesman said.
Traders said another reason was Germany's increasing green energy production, which had weighed on prices in the spot market, making German power attractive to neighbours.
The Netherlands received 16.2 TWh in the nine months and Austria and Switzerland also received high volumes.
Imports came mainly from France and the Czech Republic, but their shipment totals to Germany of 10.0 TWh and 0.1 TWh respectively in the period under review lagged their contributions in the comparable period of 2011 of 16.0 TWh and 0.4 TWh.
German solar power generation rose nearly 51 percent year-on-year to 24.9 TWh in Jan-Sept and wind power output rose 7.7 percent to 35 TWh, BDEW reported last week.
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