What a megawatt-hour of solar is actually worth

As more solar floods the same midday hours, each one earns less. The capture price is the average price solar actually receives, generation-weighted. Divided by the baseload price, that's the value factor — and it's falling.

The value factor, falling
Solar Wind Value factor = 1.0
Capture price ÷ baseload, monthly. Generation and price are resampled to one canonical hourly resolution before weighting (Germany switched to quarter-hourly settlement in Oct 2025). Anchors — DE solar capture ~50–60% of baseload, ~16% of solar at negative prices, 573 negative hours — are cited 2025 context, not computed here.
Year by year, the decline
value factor · per calendar year

The monthly line above is the trailing window; this is the long trend. Each point is a full calendar year — solar's value factor has fallen as capacity has piled into the same midday hours. (2022 is the gas-crisis outlier, when every hour was expensive.)

Solar Wind Value factor = 1.0
Annual value factor (capture ÷ baseload) for complete calendar years, from the frozen multi-year history (the current year is still in progress, so it's not shown here). ENTSO-E generation + day-ahead prices.
Capture vs baseload, by zone
€/MWh
Solar capture Wind capture Baseload
Capture = generation-weighted mean price for that fuel; baseload = time-weighted mean. Negative prices are kept, not clipped — they are the point. €/MWh.
The share earning nothing
% of solar generation in negative-price hours.
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