Aiming at maximizing the energy efficiency (EE) of multicast multibeam satellite communications, we consider the precoding design under the total power and quality of service (QoS) constraints. Since the original EE maximization problem is nonconvex, it is sequentially converted into a concave-convex fractional programming problem by introducing some variables and using the first-order Taylor low bound approximation. Based on the Charnes-Cooper transformation, it is further converted into a convex problem. Then an iterative algorithm is presented to design the energy efficient precoding. To find feasible initialization points for the algorithm and ensure its convergence, another convex optimization problem with some nonnegative slack variables and a positive penalty parameter is iteratively solved. In particular, the algorithm is verified by the measured channel data of multibeam satellite communications.