LITTLETON, Colorado, May 14 (Reuters) - Solar farms produced over 60% of Germany's electricity for several hours a day over the past week as bright sunshine combined with new solar generation capacity helped accelerate the country's energy transition away from fossil fuels.

During the week to May 13, Germany's solar farms produced 17,531 megawatt hours (MWh) of electricity, according to data from LSEG, 40% more than the week before and nearly 50% more than the long-term average for that particular week.

A recent stretch of clear and sunny skies have driven the solar surge, which typically peaks around 12-1 p.m.

At 1 p.m. in Germany on May 13, solar assets produced 43.8 gigawatts (GW) of the 72.4 GW of electricity generated in Germany at that time, according to electricitymaps.com.

That means that solar accounted for nearly two-thirds of Germany's total electricity output during that hour, vastly exceeding output from all other sources including 17% from wind farms and a combined 12% from coal and natural gas plants.

POWER SHIFT

The high deployment of domestically produced clean power marks a significant improvement in the state of Germany's power sector, which was hit hard by Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Germany secured roughly 45% of its electricity from fossil fuels in 2022, so in the year or so following Russia's Ukraine invasion the resulting cuts to natural gas flows hurt Germany's largest power users.

German production of chemicals and fertilizers - which are highly energy-intensive sectors - slumped to multi-year lows by late 2022 as surging energy costs and shortages of natural gas forced firms to curtail output.

But as surging local production of renewable energy helped steer power prices back towards long-term averages in 2023, some of the cost pressures on Germany's manufacturing base eased, spurring a patchy recovery in industrial output so far in 2024.

That recovery could be aided further by any sustained rise in German solar production, especially if accompanied by additional production from other clean power sources that could place further pressure on regional power costs.

CLEAN IMPACT

As a result of the high proportion of clean power in Germany's generation mix, the carbon intensity of the country's power sector during the 1 p.m. hour (local time) on May 13 was 166 grams of carbon dioxide per KWh, according to electricitymaps.com.

That total compares to 314g of CO2/KWh for the month of April and 425g of CO2/KWh for 2023 as a whole.

While Germany's power carbon intensity vastly exceeds the roughly 45g of CO2/KWh of France's nuclear-heavy system, the 166g reading at 1 p.m. on May 13 was below the 170g of CO2/KWh emitted during the same hour in Britain, which on an annual basis has a far lower carbon intensity than Germany.

Going forward, greater solar output will help further reduce Germany's average carbon intensity, especially during the annual solar peak generation period around June and July.

In 2023, total generation from Germany's solar assets peaked in June at 9.41 terawatt hours, according to Ember.

That generation total was 60% greater than the volume produced during April of that year, Ember data shows.

In 2024, the German solar output total for April was 7 TWh, so if output in June expands by an additional 60% that would result in a new record of 11.2 TWh of generation this year.

In addition, solar power accounted for a monthly record share of 27.3% of total electricity generation in June of 2023.

In 2024, if the recent stretch of bright, sunny skies persists, solar assets could smash that previous share record and potentially account for roughly a third of the country's electricity generation totals during the height of summer.

(Reporting by Gavin Maguire; Editing by Stephen Coates)