Germany Sets New Solar Power Record

An anonymous reader sends this quote from a Reuters report: "German solar power plants produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity per hour — equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity — through the midday hours on Friday and Saturday, the head of a renewable energy think tank said. The German government decided to abandon nuclear power after the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year, closing eight plants immediately and shutting down the remaining nine by 2022. ... The record-breaking amount of solar power shows one of the world's leading industrial nations was able to meet a third of its electricity needs on a work day, Friday, and nearly half on Saturday when factories and offices were closed."

Comments

Re:The Winter of our Disconnect

[tomhath]

It's premature to say what the net effect will be. There are time when Germany has a net surplus and exports to France (because Russian natural gas is more expensive than surplus German electricity). There are also times when Germany imports French power because French nukes keep cranking out the power around the clock and their economy is in the tank compared to Germany's.

Re:midnight

[Knuckles]

The German nuclear industry was subsidized by at least 80 billion EUR from 1956 to 2007 (and 3.7 billion in 2006 alone) based on extremely conservative estimates, but likely much more. A study commisioned by Greenpeace arrived at a number of 203.7 billion from 1950 to 2010. According to WP at least, http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernenergie#Deutschland

Re:Solar doesn't replace other power sources.

[rtaylor]

Not certain where you are but in North America (Canada too) peak electricity consumption is during the hotest summer days and typically during the afternoon to early evening (3pm to 7pm).

20 years ago you were correct. Air Conditioning, however, completely changed that.