Slashdot Mirror
Germany Exports More Electricity Than Ever Despite Phasing Out Nuclear Energy
An anonymous reader writes "Der Spiegel reports that Germany has exported more electricity this year than ever before, despite beginning to phase out nuclear power. In the first three quarters of 2012, Germany sent 12.3 terawatt hours of electricity across its borders. The country's rapid expansion into renewable energy is credited with the growth. However, the boost doesn't come without a price. The German government's investments into its new energy policy will end up costing hundreds of billions of dollars over the next two decades, and it still relies on imports for its natural gas needs. It also remains to be seen whether winter will bring power shortages. Is Germany a good example of forward-looking energy policy?"
How are your rates?
How hard is it to get a 3-phase drop for your new business?
Are you really going to have a shortage this winter?
Do the tax dollars you've put into this feel like they were decently spent?
People with less-progressive powergirds would like to know.
...usage rates compare with other nations?
How much usage do they have compared to what's generated?
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
which has exceeded 3 trillion dollars. I'd gladly trade the money spent on war for a stable power grid that doesn't go down at the drop of a leaf
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Hundreds of billions for something that you can sell and gives the country a renewable supply of energy?
That's a bargain compared to all the wars, bailouts, pork projects, mansions for the few, etc. the rest of the world is "buying" with it's tax money.
No sig today...
So I read the articles and I didn't see much reference to the EU's target of all member countries having 20% renewable energy in use by 2020. That date is fast approaching and I'm going to go out on a limb here and posit that Germany was (and still is due to the economic crisis) the country to pay up for this expensive infrastructure. Meanwhile neighboring countries like France, Poland, Czech Republic, etc are unable to build massive solar panel fields and instead might be trying to meet their own intermediary targets (like France's plan) by riding on top of Germany's output at least for the time being.
So, you know, I have no evidence of this nor do I have the numbers on all surrounding nations but is it possible that (like the summary says) this barrier to entry of hundreds of billions of dollars is putting Germany in the position as being the go-to source for companies and countries inside the EU that are struggling to meet government mandated goal posts for renewable energy? And are willing to pay a premium rather than the initial massive influx of cash required to get operations of these sizes up and running?
Anyone have numbers to back up or refute my above theory?
My work here is dung.
Ask, and the internet provides:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita
This is not a victory for renewables, but for democracy. German citizens want to go renewable enough that they are willing to swallow the costs. Germany is a rich enough country to do that, and rich countries can accomplish amazing things when they have the will to do so. That doesn't mean renewable became any more viable economically, or that other poorer countries have any chance of replicating this feat.
Actually most Germans heat without electricity. Old heating systems often run on oil, most newer ones run on gas (which can without problems be replaced by biogas because it's chemically identical) and increasingly wood pellets (made from the leftovers of sawmills). You even see an increase in prices for cheap furniture because it is made of this compressed sawdus which is now worth something instead of being thrown away :-)
Germany will have to invest billions in (HVDC) power lines to carry all that volatile electricity around. Windmills are mostly in the north, solar in the south etc. Guess who will complain when they get an ugly power line in their backyard? The same people who protested the nuclear powerplants of course.
And by the way: lot of nukes are closed in europe because they found small fractures in the reactors. In Belgium even the government starts talking about brownouts this winter.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
No, they are not an example of good, forward looking policy. They are a horrible example.
They are replacing established, 0 carbon emission, nuclear power plants with other sources that have either higher emissions because of their construction (wind, solar) or with sources that just plain have carbon emissions from their operation (natural gas). I know natural gas is way better than coal, but they're replacing nuclear with gas which increases carbon emissions.
If we want to impact global warming we have to use nuclear power. Wind and solar don't have the capacity and it will take a loooooong road of building for them to even come close to replacing other forms of electricity generation.
I absolutely loathe how the same "green" advocates who harp about the need to solve global warming now INSIST that the best no CO2 power generation options we have right now be abandoned.
Sure there are arguments on whether building NEW nuclear plants will be good or economical at reducing carbon emissions, but we're talking about shuttering working power plants here.
If you believe global warming is a problem, then the worlds turning its back on its functioning nuclear power plants has to stop!
>Subsidies for oil companies? That is a harmful myth. Being able to subtract losses from profits before paying taxes is NOT subsidizing the oil companies. It has the added advantage of giving incentives to look for more oil.
Exporting all those MWh is great, but are they just importing it back at night?
If you lived in Germany you wouldn't be worried about powercuts because your government was able to build infrastructure without a bunch of halfwits complaining that they didn't want gubbermint in their electricks.
If you think someone isn't free to have a different definition of "freedom" you may be a tyrant.
Isn't Germany currently building a ton of new coal-fired plants because 'renewables' are too unreliable to base an industrial economy on?
These new coal plants replace old stinking plants built in the 70s or so. The new coal plants are more efficient (~40% or so of the energy are converted into electricity), and might achieve above 90% overall efficiency because the waste heat is used to heat residential buildings near the plant.
Also a lot of houses have remote heating using residual heat from gas or coal power stations. This way these power stations get an efficiency rating of close to 100%, something that wouldn't be possible otherwise (due to the second law of thermodynamics).
1) Based on the summary numbers, Germany basically has the equivalent of 1.4 Gigawatts of spare capacity. Likely more as I'm sure they don't sell 100% of their excess capacity. This works out to enough to power about 1 million American homes.
2) The cost of the renewable energy looks like it will cost less than the war in Iraq did for the United States.
Draw your own conclusions.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
What are those exports? It's the solar power and wind power that can't be used for lack of domestic power transmission and simple lack of demand in the areas where it is generated. This power must be exported, because it cannot be consumed. Despite all that, wind turbines still have be shut down at peak generation - leading to a steady decline in actual capacity factors of wind turbines. (Don't worry about you money, of course feed-in tariffs are still being paid when turbines are shut down ...)
The most important question on those exports is hidden by the phrasing of those propaganda news: How much did germany get in return for those exports and how much did it cost to produce them? It doesn't take much in the way of imagination to conclude that it isn't much at all. Domestic power prices regularly drop to a fraction of the feed-in tariffs being paid for wind and solar power (occasionally dropping into negative territory) and exports are unlikely to offer better rates.
The result of all that? Germans will pay an average of 0.28 Euro - or about $0.40 per kWh next year, up from 0.25 Euro this year. With a clear trend upwards, as more and more wind turbines and solar cells that produce useless electricity come online. With the recent push for off-shore wind generation that will be 50-100% more expensive than solar power (depending on the scale of the solar power plant), this will only rise. Germany will catch up with the very highest electricity prices in Europe next year (Danemark) and is set to surpass them right thereafter.
Meanwhile, the need for transmission lines is still seen as a conspiracy of the electricity utilities by most "greens" in Germany. The need for serious storage capacity, which is already rather giant, is still not recognized.
This is what you call a bubble - worth on the order of $350bn and rising - paid by electricity consumers through their bills. The only people who profit from it are those who have enough money to pay for solar cells or wind turbines and the more money they spend on them, the more they get. A classic transfer of money from the poor to the richest of our society - all brought to you by massive lobbying of the Green party.
"Hundreds of Billions" over 20 years? That seems to be pretty inexpensive.
Also think of all the jobs for installing/servicing/billing that are being created.
With more adoption of solar/wind/tidal generation, the initial price of the equipment should go down, once
the Chinese market undercutting is "fixed"
You know next to nothing about Germany, it seems. Thanks for making that painfully obvious.
I installed a wood burning insert into our fireplace. It has a large glass door so you can still see the flames for ambiance. It is 70% efficient, using a blower to circulate heat and is designed to reignite smoke to reduce particulates. I gather wood locally from trees my neighbors cut down after summer storms.
So I can heat the house in the event of a power outage. I also have an inverter so I can use my prius as a generator to run the blower, router, wifi.
We have the best government that money can buy.
"it still relies on imports for its natural gas needs"
There is a limited supply of natural gas (I'm not talking about stocks and how long we could sustain on reserves of natural gas but on the limited bandwidth of existing and soon to be activated pipelines).
Natural gas is used for 2 usages in Europe: electricy production and home heating.
Germany is currently at the end of majors pipelines coming from Russia, the largery biggest provider of natural gas to Europe. So Germany can prioritized its own usages of natural gas for electricity production. In competition with households from all accross Europe using natural gas for heating who will see the price of natural gas rise.
So the decision to switch to natural gas for its electricity production, Germany impacts the expenses of households of all Europe.
PS: disclaimer: I'm from Europe, I'm not German and I use natural gas for heating.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
That is so bogus. Germany relies on coal. It's replacing its nuclear generators with coal powered generators. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany The thing about renewable generation is mostly a lie.
A well insulated house can easily be heated with a couple dozen candles with an outdoor temperature around 0F.
Well, according to this article, the neighbors don't want that exported electricity and it's causing problems with their grids.
When Germany need all of their power is during the winter, when temperature is well below zero degrees. During this period they will not export a single watt of energy out of Germany.
12.3 Twh = 12 300 Gwh = 12 300 000 Mwh.
12 300 000 Mwh / 273 days / 24 hours = 1 877 Mw per hour.
When the companies in question are making RECORD profits, whether you call it a subsidy or not, they don't need it.
People in cars cause accidents....accidents in cars cause people
...just wait until you see how much those non-renewable alternatives like tar sands and coal-to-gas will cost you. And that's before you figure in the cost to clean up the mess they make.
Remember: deepwater horizon had a wellhead as far beneath the waves as Denver is above them, and the oil itself was farther below the seafloor than the peak of Everest is above sea level. Loooooooong gone are the days when you had to be careful with a pickaxe in Texas lest you set off a gusher.
Oh -- and it's petroleum that fertilizes our crops and powers our transportation infrastructure, and we've already burned up half of the planet's total reserves. The easy-to-get-to and high-quality half, of course.
Like it or not, the days of cheap energy are done and gone with. If we're smart, we'll bootstrap ourselves to a solar-based energy system, which won't be cheap, but it will give us more power than any of us can imagine. There's enough insolation just on America's residential rooftops to power the entire planet, for example. If we invest wisely, as Germany is doing, we'll sacrifice a little bit of short-term comfort for a lifetime of luxury. If we invest poorly, as Obama will have us do with his "Drill, baby! Drill!" energy plan... ...well, if we actually follow through with that, we're well and truly fucked.
Cheers,
b&
All but God can prove this sentence true.
Wind power is the best thing ever happened to Gas powerstations manufacturers.
For every wind farm, you need a gas powerstation of the same size to compensate when the wind is not blowing.
So, over one year, wind power rejects more CO2 than a nuclear plant of same capacity.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
The high trade surplus does not clear for possible power shortages in winter . On particularly cold days when the sun is not even the wind blows, Germany is dependent, according to the Agency on a so-called cold reserve. At that include power plants in Austria.
Incidentally, "cold reserve" is code for "coal". All they have done by shutting down nuclear is to switch to coal. There have been other articles about this as well. Solar is great and all, but it doesn't generate base power load well.
When the wind is not blowing, either you need to activate a CO2 generating natural gas power plant (with increasing price of natural gas) or import from other countries that would gladly charge you top money for this energy you need and can't produce.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
I know the author was trying to tout renewable energy, but the fact of the matter is they turned off their nuclear plants, and ramped up how much coal their burning. Now, you might not like Nuclear, and I could argue with you on that... but coal is far far worse than Nuclear will ever be. This is a net loss for the environment. We need to turn off the coal, turn on the nuclear, and develop the renewable. Nuclear wont last forever, but it's the cleanest fuel we have for now.
France: 0.12 Euro per kWh.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
There's a lot of talk about wind energy in Germany, but in truth most of our energy stems from coal and natural gas plants. And that's not going to change in the foreseeable future. Check out the up-to-date statistics on power production in Germany that eex provides.
There are no blizzards in Germany, and there has been no blackouts in DECADES (and in particular, there has been no blackouts since renewable are a significant share of the baseload). What are you talking about??
Now, what is not shown in this trumpeting article is the amount of coal that gets burned compared to neighboring countries that do use nuclear power.
I really would have it contributed to Green energy but as far as i got it, it is not due to the fact that they have a surplus of green energy, but that the Coal price is way lower than Gas.
As a result Gas plants are turned off and Coal plants are used to the max.
It just happens that the Netherlands has a lot of Gas plants and Germany Coal plants, hence the exports
There are no stupid questions, Just a lot of inquisitive idiots. (from a good friend)
"Isn't Germany currently building a ton of new coal-fired plants because 'renewables' are too unreliable to base an industrial economy on?"
No.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
From the given link, the President said ""So my attitude is let's stop giving taxpayer subsidies to oil companies that don't need them ...".
He, too, believes that allowing the subtraction of losses from profits prior to taxation is a form of subsidy. Even a child at his Kool-Aid stand knows he has to pay his parents back for the paper cups and Kool-Aid before seeing how much he profited. That should not change when the child gets 50 years older, and it is an oil business instead of a Kool-Aid stand.
"They don't need it"
Unless you are the richest person in the world, there will always be someone with more than you, that you can state that about, to try to justify taking it from them.
You do know that GAS heaters require electricity to run the fans.....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Sure! If you don't mind paying 5X as much for electricity as you do now, you too can help fund the development of renewable energy projects, just like the Germans. Oh what a time to be alive.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Not the gas heaters I know.
That's my point. While the heating elements are gas or oil powered, the fans to circulate the air are electric. Even radiators require SOME electricity to operate. At least in America, even gas-powered water heaters use electricity to ignite the pilot light when the water heater is activated, the pilot light does not stay lit 24/7 like older water heaters used to.
While the idea is great, saying that the German electric grid is in great condition during mild weather is like saying that a car has excellent braking while going uphill. Let's see what happens when the temperature is hovering around freezing and there are only 8 hours of sunlight per day. Yes, I know that solar panels do not require direct sunlight to work.
sudo make me a sandwich
Yes.
German coal power revival poses new emissions threat
Oh no... it's the future.
So there are no blizzards in Germany, eh?
sudo make me a sandwich
And hopefully the homeowner has a good CO detector.
sudo make me a sandwich
Sure, nuclear power plants (and their future dislocation) are and will be zero-carbon, compared to the part of my roof that's covered with cells.
How is parent modded interesting, that's 'funny' you should have clicked!
Herve S.
Actually, there was a blackout almost exactly 6 years ago when a reroute due to a routine disconnect for a newly built ship crossing failed thanks to some miscalculations. Half the Europe had no power for a few seconds, parts of it for a couple of minutes.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Like the title says, how much did they produce? How much did they use? I would not be surprized if some of that energy was bought cheaply from some troubled European countries and then re-sold at higher price.
But renewables don't work! Subsidies for oil companies! Drill baby drill etc.
They don't work.
Here in Ontario(Canada), it's cost electricity users $20B in subsidies so far, and is costing the average rate payer right now about 3c/KWH on top of their electricity bill on ToU billing at peak. By 2016, Ontario is projected to be at 16c/KWH one of the highest in North America. This is all because of subsidies, or the FiT(Feed it Tariff) program. Where utilities get paid at a higher rate than they can sell for. Usually between 40-60c/KWH.
But hey, look above. A german mentioned that they're paying 0.45c/KWH right now. Enjoy that screw over, though he didn't mention that nearly 800k germans can no longer afford electricity and have been cut off. Though the article is considered dated from June of this year, and it's figured to be over 1 million germans now.
Om, nomnomnom...
"They don't need it"
Unless you are the richest person in the world, there will always be someone with more than you, that you can state that about, to try to justify taking it from them.
True enough - but there should be a reasonable bright line where you are making, say, 100 times more than the average wage for a worker in %COUNTRY_YOU_LIVE_IN% where we can argue that paying a lower percentage in taxes than said workers is not contributing back enough.
I bring in approximately 5% of what Romney makes, yet I pay slightly more than double the percentage in taxes. That's because his horse and car elevators etc. are business expenses, while my car and clothing purchases are not (also that nifty rule about money you earn is taxed at 35% while money your money earns is only 15%).
And tax rebates are a misnomer - some companies actually receive "rebates," larger than their total tax payments. I will continue to call those subsidies, since they in no way earned that money.
Changa hates change.
I live in Oregon, we pay on average 7.6cents per kWh. Much lower then the national average. We get over 50% of our electricity form renewable source. Mostly Hydro.
maybe you should research AND THEN form an opinion?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That's my point. While the heating elements are gas or oil powered, the fans to circulate the air are electric. Even radiators require SOME electricity to operate. At least in America, even gas-powered water heaters use electricity to ignite the pilot light when the water heater is activated, the pilot light does not stay lit 24/7 like older water heaters used to.
Hot water and steam heating systems can operate via convection - no electricity needed. (some do use electric circulating pumps, but many (especially older ones) use no electricity to circulate the water). Even some air based systems use convection to get the heated air to the rooms - no fans are needed, just big ducts.
I'd have thought that everyone was pretty much like me...you get an electric bill...you pay it, that you rate your 'usage' by how high your bill is each month.
I have levelized billing, so I just pay about $200-$210/mo and never look at the bill. Kinda like with gasoline or other commodity utilities in my life. I have to have them, so I just get the bill and see the amount, pay and forget about it and be on my merry way.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Look at Fukushima and you see everything that Germany did right with nuclear power plants:
2 emergency generators must remain in all cases, including 1 being down due to maintenance and another breaking down. This must also be the case if any damaging external events hit the power plant - usually resulting in 6 emergency generators per reactor. Japan prescribed having two emergency generators per plant in 2002. There is no further redundancy during maintenance or breakdown.
Mandatory, regularely updated comprehensive risk assessments are the norm in Germany, but were not prescibed at all in Japan. Resulting in Tokai and Onagawa power plants being protected against tsunamis, while Tepco deemed this unnecessary. The Japanese regulator NISA explicitly told companies that no training for a full power station blackout was necessary and none was conducted by Tepco. All that despite the fact that BWR containment had the necessary equipment to handle such a situation without a meltdown for good reason. Unfortunately, it takes training to do the right thing at the right time with that equipment - which is to be expected, given that we're talking about the first generation of commercial BWRs designed in the late 1950ies and early 1960ies.
Filtered containment vents for all reactors since 1988 (still none in Japan, neither in the USA btw.) Even though this was implemented too late in light of the fact that BWR containments were found to result in exactly the kind of contamination we now see in Japan in a report written in 1975 (WASH-1400), quite unlike PWR containments that would have handled a similar meltdown without major release - it was still almost a quarter of a century before the Tohoku Earthquake.
Catalytic recombiners in all reactors since 1993 (now being installed in Japan as it became law in 2012) to prevent hydrogen explosions.
Had any single one of those points been implemented in Fukushima Daiichi, this would have been sufficient to limit the release of radioactivity to small amounts affecting no more than the power plant itself.
I haven't read the FIT for Germany, but typical FITs only pay when energy is delivered. If the wind stops blowing, the generator is not able to charge for the capacity of the facility during that time.
Power exports are highly volatile and depend on who else is generating at the time and what the demand is at that time. If the majority of exports occurred in the evening, the exporter is likely doing so at or below cost. However, daytime rates are often several times higher than the price at night which would be a gain for the exporter.
The bottom line is that renewables make power trading more volatile but not necessarily more expensive. More generators mean more competition and the potential for lower prices. The power system is very complicated and very hard to characterize.
If absolute power corrupts absolutely, what does this say about renewable power?
I rent in Canada and I pay CA$0.11/kWh all-in with no base cost. That's €0.087. Some months, it's 10 cents. Man, you guys get ripped off!
As long as you have heat or enthalpy recovery, it still works fine while ventilating the space.
it's cost electricity users $20B
And its worth every penny. Seriously does no one think big anymore?
I have yet to see an air based heating system in Europe. In Germany, virtually all heating systems are water based. The renewable energy used to make power in Germany is not only solar but also wind based. Plus there are backup sources (e.g., water based power plants). And, adding to that an infrastructure that actually works. I live in Germany, my significant other in the US. In the past seven years I had a few seconds of power outage TOTAL. My significant other had more than one week this year alone.
Notice the word "credit" in two lines of your reply, and "expensing" in a third line. That does not mean that there is a money flow from government (Read:our) pockets to theirs. It means that we (the government) are not taking as much from the oil companies.
Personally, I am in favor of removing all corporate taxes. Taxing the corporate entity, that is, the paperwork, bricks, plaster, and other building materials, is like pulling feathers out of the proverbial golden goose. It just makes the owners of corporations move out-of-country. Tax the thousands of stock owners more, if that is what must be done.
In summary, failure to take money from someone is twisted to mean subsidy, and it is one of the big lies out there.
.
...and I hope it gave you at least a little chuckle, too. I was going for "funny" and not "flamebait".
But I guess the /. nuke fans found my post to be a little too close to the truth? They do seem to be remarkably humorless, so I suppose I was asking for it.
Well, ok. But that's nothing like North Dakota or Iowa. Its freezing, sure. But dying on the Autobahn due to freezing in place is not a serious threat...
Regardless of how efficient they are, they're still a major source of greenhouse gas emissions.
The current mess this country is in is pretty much the result of an incompetent back-and-forth between elected governments that always try to push through some bullshit to get re-elected. Several years back, a "left"/green coalition (the chancellor from back then coincidentally got into a leading position at Russias gas racket Gazprom when he was done with that) actually decided to phase out nuclear power with a set timeframe. Nobody in the industry gave a shit by then, because everyone banked on the next government reverting the whole thing. There were also enough loopholes in there to drive the entire US nuclear arsenal through without anyone bothering: stuff like transferring lifetime from new, safer reactors to old crappy ones that were already beyond their planned lifetime. Why? Simple: the old ones were fully written off, and everything they produced was pure profit.
Some years later, enter right-conservative/capitalist government (the one we have now), the whole thing was actually scrapped for good! The industry rejoiced, but of course they continued generating income through the financing plan for renewables. Politics didn't care: they actually tax the tax, so more taxes on top of higher fees!
Some years later, enter the tsunami and upcoming elections, it was, of course top priority for our current ruling fascists (actually those are the ones at least partly responsible for some Greek islands having no water sometimes, austerity measures can be fun) to make it their idea to phase out nuclear power. Now. No thought, no brains, just now. Of course, in the past years, nobody bothered to invest in the infrastructure because the whole thing was canned earlier in the legislative period.
Oh, of course we also stopped paying for ITER, so we will always need to import some fossil fuel, preferably through the new pipeline from Russia, to meet base demand, so that was a smart move.
That "plan" deserves shooting of everyone involved, not recommendation.
Fight hunger. Filet a politician and send him to a 3rd world country of your choice.
Solar is great and all, but it doesn't generate base power load well.
Solar is better than base load production for areas with little summer/winter difference, because solar produces power during the day when it is needed -- unlike nuclear which produces half its power when no one needs it at night.
The problem with solar is known as "winter".
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
In most of Europe, grid power is more reliable than most datacenter UPS/generator solutions. Way beyond five nines.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
They had a very cool summer. The connection to tree-hugging is BS.
And its worth every penny. Seriously does no one think big anymore?
Really? Okay let's go with that. And look at the fiscal situation in Ontario. We have around a 8% unemployment rate, some parts of the province are around 15%. Businesses are leaving in droves because of energy prices here. Mainly electricity. Never minding that by your post, apparently you don't live here in various parts Canada, your average "solar project" won't even recover 40% of it's cost within it's lifetime. That's how little sunlight we have factored in over a year. Nor does wind, which again is highly fickle. In some parts of the country the winds are too high, in other parts there is no consistent winds at all.
For us, the best solutions are nuclear and geothermal.
Om, nomnomnom...
I don't know about Germany, but Denmark had the wind turbines produce 28% of the domestic electricity consumption in 2011, which obviously resulted in a lot of exports and imports. Yet Denmark made more per kWh exporting than what was paid per kWh importing.
This is because wind power is produced mainly during winter months where the hydro power stations in Sweden and Norway are running out of water. The power imported in summer is cheap, because the lakes cannot contain the amount of water coming in as the snow melts. Northern Germany can get almost the same deal, but the southern parts likely can't because Germany is still a bit lacking in north-south transmission lines. Given that it is Germany that we are talking about, the transmission problem will be fixed.
Also note that the "raw" electricity prices in Denmark are extremely competitive, especially when considering that Denmark has no natural energy resources (except oil, but no one sane uses that in power plants). Taxes on energy are high, but taxing things that do harm makes more sense than taxing things which are beneficial (like work).
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Keyword here is "beginning". Germany quietly restarted several reactors, which will slowly be decomissioned until 2020. So yeah, they still have power. And cretinously stupid hippies can blather about "being green".
Its more like 0,3 € per KWh, but yes, its getting tough for the unemployed and very poor to afford power. The article doesnt say they were cut off permanently though... Prolem is power-business here is dominated by oligopoly, so yes its a screw-over. But thats NOT caused by renewable energy increases , thats plain bullshit (more on the contrary, small companies that purely produce green power, are creating some competition by now, they can do this because they have the gurantee they get a fixed price for input from the big guys) . Its caused by the fact that the heavy industry which accounts for the most usage is freed of the EEG-Umlage by law...e.g. they dont have to pay those extra-cents for renewable because they would all go bankrupt within hours, unemployment would skyrocket and the world would end ;-)
At least thats what politicans here are saying...
That's not what I said. It's when the wind is blowing and the turbines have to be stopped for lack of demand, when the feed in tariff keeps being paid in full. In Germany it takes 10GW of installed capacity to produce about 1.7GW on average over the year. But peak generation remains on the order of 10GW, so this happens a lot, even when the overall contribution of wind power is just a fraction of annual demand.
So, when a certain area claims to get 50% of their energy from wind power (some parts of Germany do), then what this means in real-world terms is that in good wind conditions the wind turbines produce anywhere between 2 times and 5 times as much electricity as can be consumed in the area. (Depending on the time of day and week. At night, demand is especially low, but wind will be blowing anyway) Of course, this unconsumable surplus is part of the "50%" they keep claiming, so in reality they receive much less of their energy from wind power than they claim.
Now, you may say that the energy isn't wasted, it is exported. But that's only true if you operate on a small scale. If wind power is adopted large-scale all over Europe, you'll run out of places to export your surplus to as the wind will be blowing there too. Wind is highly correlated over large areas of Europe, especially the windy ones around the north sea.
Why do you write such nonsense? ... not based on installed capacity. /. and especially US wikipedia myth. No one in the enery business uses that term or the pseudoscience math behind it. ...
Power exports are usually based on long term contracts.
Wind turbines are very seldom shut down due to much production. In such a case you shut down (more exactly: power down) a coal plant.
Feed in tarrifs are not payed fo shut down plants, how do you come to this brain dead idea?
Payed are kWh, with a tarrif based on source and market conditions
Finally: capacity factor is a
The rest of your post where you throw in random Euro numbers makes no sense at all
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
A cold reserve is pretty simple an amount of power plants that are completely deactivated. Hence: cold.
Solar does generate base power load very well during daytime
Coal power is on the decline since over 15 years, there is no real increase planned.
Cold reserves can not realy be bought from other countries. Energy producers are required by law to have their own.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Ofc we have, *cough* HAD, blizzards in germany. ... due to global warmung.
But since the late 1980s there was only one
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
No. The new plants are built mainly to replace older ones. They are more efficient and create bottom line less CO2.
And: FYI the decission to drop nuclear was finalized a year ago. The boom in renewables we have since over 10 years.
The decission and the start of construction of the new coal plants was also over a decade ago.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
But you don't know that the grid is not affected by temperature? Strange!
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
It is illegal to cut someone off from electric power.
On top of that 800.000 people is 1% of the population. That is an insane amount. Considering that everyone who gets social care gets its housing and power payed by the s ocial system, the number is completely ridiculous.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
How about the actual warming that nuclear does?
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Considering that south of canada is farer south than france (certainly farer than germaby/swizerland) [sun] and also considering the long east coast and west coast [wind], your claims make no sense at all.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I didn't come up with the braindead idea to pay feed in tariffs for shut-down plants - it was braindead German legislature. And wind turbines are regularely shut down in Germany because of overproduction. You can see it, because they don't spin and their average power production has been dropping. The owners of wnd turbines used to complain about having to shut down their turbines - hence the braindead piece of legislature to pay them anyway.
Also, if you think capacity factors are a myth, you can't be helped.
Sorry, you are wrong.
Thats why your idea is brainded.
No one pays feed in tarrifs for a plant, payed is for kWh.
There is no such law as you claim.
Capacity factors are a myth in so far as no one working in the energy sector is using them and most numbers on american/english wikipedia pages are nonsens regardless how you put them or use them.
Hint, if you would follow my older posts you would know: I actually work for one of the biggest german energy companies.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Exactly how dense are you? Of course wind power plants are being paid feed in tariffs when forced to shut down - for every kWh they could have fed into the grid, if they had not been forced to shut down.
Given your ignorance of the subject and the fact that you're calling capacity factors a myth, you either lied about your "credentials" or I should be much more afraid of Germanys future in energy than I ever thought was warranted.
Exactly how dense are YOU?
There is no such law that a) forces wind power plants to shut down, and b) there is no law that forces energy companies to pay for offline/shut down wind plants. AGAIN: why are you repeating this lie? Who told you that bullshit? And why are you so dumb to believe it is true?
Capacity factors are only citaded and likely also put up by 'unknowing' guys like you.
Capacity factor, in german KapazitÃtsfaktor, is word that does not even exist. No one uses it, no power plant has it as an attribute. Looking at the claimed capacity factors (on wikipedia) of nuclear of 90% and wind of, what whas it, 25% I believe, clearly shows that those wikipedia article writers have no clue about how power is produced or power plants or fleets of power plants are run.
A typical offshore wind park is producing about 50% of its time over the year 'rated' load, about 25% of the time above rated load, about 20% of its time below rated load, and 1% no load and about 4% very low load.
With the 50% time where it is running at name plate values it is already far above the wikipedia claimes of 25% "capashitfactor". If you don't believe that, hint: google is yoour friend.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Shut up you freak.
Only a miniscule fraction of german wind power is off-shore. So whatever you say is an implicit lie. Capacity factors of *all* wind power in Germany were 16.7% in 2010 and 18% in 2011. If you're incapable of calculating that from the amount of energy generated and the installed name-plate power you better get off your job.
Second:
11 EEG
Einspeisemanagement
(1) Netzbetreiber sind unbeschadet ihrer Pflicht nach 9 ausnahmsweise berechtigt, an ihr Netz unmittelbar oder mittelbar angeschlossene Anlagen und KWK-Anlagen, die mit einer Einrichtung zur ferngesteuerten Reduzierung der Einspeiseleistung bei Netzüberlastung im Sinne von 6 Absatz 1 Nummer 1, Absatz 2 Nummer 1 oder 2 Buchstabe a ausgestattet sind, zu regeln, soweit
1. andernfalls im jeweiligen Netzbereich einschließlich des vorgelagerten Netzes ein Netzengpass entstünde,
2. der Vorrang für Strom aus erneuerbaren Energien, Grubengas und Kraft-Wärme-Kopplung gewahrt wird, soweit nicht sonstige Anlagen zur Stromerzeugung am Netz bleiben müssen, um die Sicherheit und Zuverlässigkeit des Elektrizitätsversorgungssystems zu gewährleisten, und
3. sie die verfügbaren Daten über die Ist-Einspeisung in der jeweiligen Netzregion abgerufen haben.
Bei der Regelung der Anlagen nach Satz 1 sind Anlagen im Sinne des 6 Absatz 2 erst nachrangig gegenüber den übrigen Anlagen zu regeln. Im Übrigen müssen die Netzbetreiber sicherstellen, dass insgesamt die größtmögliche Strommenge aus erneuerbaren Energien und Kraft-Wärme-Kopplung abgenommen wird.
(2) Netzbetreiber sind verpflichtet, Betreiberinnen und Betreiber von Anlagen nach 6 Absatz 1 spätestens am Vortag, ansonsten unverzüglich über den zu erwartenden Zeitpunkt, den Umfang und die Dauer der Regelung zu unterrichten, sofern die Durchführung der Maßnahme vorhersehbar ist.
(3) Die Netzbetreiber müssen die von Maßnahmen nach Absatz 1 Betroffenen unverzüglich über die tatsächlichen Zeitpunkte, den jeweiligen Umfang, die Dauer und die Gründe der Regelung unterrichten und auf Verlangen innerhalb von vier Wochen Nachweise über die Erforderlichkeit der Maßnahme vorlegen. Die Nachweise müssen eine sachkundige dritte Person in die Lage versetzen, ohne weitere Informationen die Erforderlichkeit der Maßnahme vollständig nachvollziehen zu können; zu diesem Zweck sind im Fall eines Verlangens nach Satz 1 letzter Halbsatz insbesondere die nach Absatz 1 Satz 1 Nummer 3 erhobenen Daten vorzulegen. Die Netzbetreiber können abweichend von Satz 1 Anlagenbetreiberinnen und Anlagenbetreiber von Anlagen nach 6 Absatz 2 in Verbindung mit Absatz 3 nur einmal jährlich über die Maßnahmen nach Absatz 1 unterrichten, solange die Gesamtdauer dieser Maßnahmen 15 Stunden pro Anlage im Kalenderjahr nicht überschritten hat; diese Unterrichtung muss bis zum 31. Januar des Folgejahres erfolgen. 13 Absatz 5 Satz 3 des Energiewirtschaftsgesetzes bleibt unberührt.
Ah, you finally figured it. It is not power companies but grid operators that have to pay a compensation if they can not carry power from the producer to the customer. The compensation is far below 'feed in tarrifs' as you claimed before. The intent is that grid operators invest into grid capacity, as soon as the investment is cheaper than paying compensation.
Regarding your wiered wind power numbers, you are wrong again. Most of the wind power is off shore. Your numbers are not the percentage of 'possible' windpower in relation to installed amount (capacishitfactor) bit the total contribution to all power generated with wind. We are generating up to 20% of our power via wind, since years.
BTW, you missed to copy / paste the paragraph about 'compensation' in case your plant can not feed into the grid.
You copied the paragraph that covers the energy you actually do feed into the grid. And how grid operators have to behave and notify authorities etc.
So, you actualy still don't know how much they pay for shutting down a plant :)
As a sidenote, not realy important but as you seem to be a number freak and unable to educate yourself: the amount of power lost because of (wind) power plant shut downs, is below 1% of all wind power generated, so it is below 0.02% of all power generated and used in the german grid.
Sorry, my mistake that I did not grasp you where talking about grid operators and not power providers.
Feed in traffic is payed by power providers. (Something like 16 cent per kWh)
Grid operators only charge/pay grid traffic. (Something like 5 cent per kWh). The compensation if you can not feed your power plants energy into the grid is even lower.
Ah well the paragraph you are desperately looking for is: Â13.2 EnWG
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Yep: we live in a Passiv standard house in central Germany, heated by sun through large windows, body heat and whatever the appliances give off and helped by a ventilation system with a heat exchanger. Works great, and totally draught free, even next to the window in sub 0C temperatures.
Yes and no.
a 300 watt microinverter setup with a panel is about $650.00 for the safe ones that are tested and UL approved (ECE approved in europe) And they offset about $1.00 to $2.00USD of energy per month.
So they will pay themselves back in about, 325 months or 27 years.
If you instead reduce your power usage by 150 watts (What a microinverter will make in a perfect day, typically they only produce peak power for 1/3rd the day in the summer). you get instant payback. It is ALWAYS better to reduce power use before you try and generate your own power.
If you are even thinking of solar, you need to reduce your power consumption before you even think of buying any solar setup.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
No. they are REPLACING... stop cherry picking to make your lie the truth.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
If there were working implementations you might be right.
As long as you're wishing for future tech, you might as well hope that LENR pans out. NASA seems fairly convinced it's real. Flying cars at last! ;-)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait