Germany Sets New National Record With 85 Percent of Its Electricity Sourced From Renewables (digitaltrends.com)

Germany was able to set a new national record for the last weekend of April with 85 percent of all electricity consumed in the country being produced from renewables -- wind, solar, biomass, and hydroelectric power. Digital Trends reports: Aided by a seasonal combination of windy but sunny weather, during that weekend the majority of Germany's coal-fired power stations weren't even operating, while nuclear power stations (which the country plans to phase out by the year 2022) were massively reduced in output. To be clear, this is impressive even by Germany's progressive standards. By comparison, in March just over 40 percent of all electricity consumed in the country came from renewable sources. However, while the end-of-April weekend was an aberration, the hope is that it won't be for too much longer. According to Patrick Graichen of the country's sustainability-focused Agora Energiewende Initiative, German renewable energy percentages in the mid-80s should be "completely normal" by the year 2030.

Comments

Not bad

[Lennie]

10 or maybe even more years ago, Germany government was funding renewable energy production to get it to a mass production level, since a couple of years they are funding energy storage.

Anyone want to complain how it's not working ?

Re:Not bad

[AHuxley]

Germany imports its power. Germany likes to tell the world it does not import other nations "nuclear" power.
Lots of energy imports but not from other nations nuclear producers. Other nations nuclear power is consumed as produced in their own nations.
A lot of energy is also passed around the EU too. So that all changes depending on the count and destination nation and how the media presents the energy use.
Germany also needs to ensure its PV capacity keeps growing. When the sun is out and the wind is blowing its really positive news.
Then the pride in no nuclear. All that good PR covers for electrical imports.

Re:Not bad

[AmiMoJo]

Germany is not nearly finished with its transition. It is expected to be nuclear free by around 2023. This news is just showing that they are well on their way to that goal, with another 5 years to go before we can really judge the outcome.

If you go back 5 or 10 years on Slashdot you can see hoards of idiots claiming that Germany can't do this and will become a third world country with intermittent power and will massively increase coal dependence and is headed for the stone age. Some predicted that only the super rich will be able to afford electricity. Well, none of that has happened and they have already reached a point well beyond what many thought was even possible, and are continuing to make progress towards their goal.

Re:Not bad

[Anonymous Coward]

10 or maybe even more years ago, Germany government was funding renewable energy production to get it to a mass production level, since a couple of years they are funding energy storage.

Anyone want to complain how it's not working ?

You can't have what Germany has without the heavy hand of government.
Something that is anathema to you american rednecks and hillbillies.
Especially to those in both chambers of Congress.

Re:Not bad

[Opportunist]

...and me without modpoints...

Terse and to the point. This, and a million times this.

Re:Not bad

[ShanghaiBill]

Germany imports its power.

Yes and no. Germany exports peak power to other countries during the day. At night, Germany imports base load power from French nukes. The price is higher during the day, so even if Germany imports and exports the same amount of kw-hrs, they still make money.

Re:Not bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Or how about a real one.. They buy electricity from else where but don't count that since they sold renewable while it was in over supply. This really wouldn't work for all of the EU at once. Since then you really would need to store it. And even Germany requires spinning reserves.

Re:Not bad

[thegarbz]

Electric power in Germany is more than twice as expensive as it is in America.

Electric power in the entire world is twice as expensive as it is in America. Petrol and diesel even more so. Don't mistake what makes Germany unique for what actually makes America unique.

Re:Not bad

[Kiuas]

It is expected to be nuclear free by around 2023

I personally think this is their main problem. Right now the focus of all industrialized nations should be on ditching the use of fossil fuels as rapidly as possible. Nuclear power is an effective way of producing energy to cover up for what cannot be produced by renewables. Right now as they're adamant on ditching nuclear as well, their CO2 emissions are rising and they're unlikely to meet their emission goals, because increased demand has to be met with increased used of natural gas, which, while better than coal for sure, is not as good emissions wise as nuclear.

Now don't get me wrong, I think nuclear is not a permanent solution so the idea of going fully renewable is good. I just think their implementation and schedule is slightly foolish. If they kept some of the nuclear and used that to provide the rest of what they need, they wouldn't have to use natural gas, or import as much energy from abroad.

The main reason I stopped voting for the Green party here in Finland was their illogical opposition to the use of nuclear energy as part of a strategy to cut down on emissions. Because the 'green' crowd has absurd fears of nuclear due to radiation they end up favoring policies which in the short-to-mid term drive emissions up, all in the name of protecting the environment.

The challenges with storing nuclear waste are much easier to solve than the challenges we're going to amass by continuing to release CO2 in current amounts, which is why I don't favor adopting the German approach even though we do have the same goal in mind.

Re:Not bad

[thegarbz]

My point exactly. But if you want to compare the situation in Germany to the USA, they also on average use less than half the electricity per person, so that "high" cost of green energy isn't anywhere near as bad as Americans may think.

Re:Not bad

[AmiMoJo]

This is an example of the mistake I was trying to warn against making. Yes, in the short term their CO2 emissions are rising, but they are getting where they need to go very rapidly. It's a short term small rise for a long term huge gain.

As for nuclear, it's mostly about the cost. Rather than throwing more money at nuclear energy (it needs investment to keep going, with new plants and work to extend the life of old ones) they chose to invest that money in renewable generation and storage.

Rather than saying "we need nuclear because our transition to renewables/storage will be slow", they are saying "we don't need nuclear because our transition will be fast and make it unnecessary before anything new can even be built".

Re:Not bad

[Bongo]

I don't understand. What country like Germany can come to run on 90% renewables all year round?

I think there are desirable principles and beliefs, and there are practical outcomes, and I do not see how we are any closer to that goal.

I could get on a cycle generator and pedal away for 24 hours and cover 90% of my home energy use that day...and that proves nothing, as it is just a fluke.

And people talk about storage. Where is all this storage? Are we really better off investing in developing theoretical storage technologies rather than more up-to-date nuclear technologies?

I don't understand why people are so enamoured of wind and solar. They still ruin the landscape views.

And I say this as someone who would quite like it if all the city and street and home lights were turned off at night, and we could once again enjoy good starry skies and get some natural sleep in darkness.

You can make anything work for a short time. "Green" and "renewables" and "clean" are often just adjectives used to make the thing sound pretty. Where is the truly sustainable technology??

I cannot see how CO2 is the near-civilisation-ending threat but we continue having coal stations in order to try to have time to make renewables and storage work -- that is not someone who has any sense of urgency. Nuclear is the only option. Unfortunately, it just is.

Re:Not bad

[ledow]

You can achieve almost anything if you're willing to throw enough money and people at it.

From the Great Pyramids to putting a man on the moon.

The question to ask is not "Did these people want something and do it?" but "Was what they wanted practical and sensible?"

They are entirely different questions.

I could run a country from AA batteries, if I'm allowed to tax everyone and use government money to do it, and people get behind the idea. Whether that's sensible or sustainable is another matter entirely.

Re:Not bad

[TheRaven64]

Quebec is a fairly special case, because of the abundance of hydro. Quebec has, on average, 14.8 people per square kilometre, whereas Germany has 229.4. This gives Quebec a much larger area to devote to hydroelectric dams per person. They also have geography that is particularly well suited to hydro power.

Re:Not bad

[AmiMoJo]

The Green Energy Act came in 2009, 8 years ago. According to Wikipedia, it likely only have a very minimal effect on prices: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

In fact, all available evidence suggests that only around 3% of the cost increase was due to "green" subsidies and FiT, the majority being other incidental costs and guaranteed payments to nuclear generators.

If you really care about getting energy costs down, you should demand nuclear plants have their guaranteed payment agreements cancelled (likely impossible) and support expansion of renewable energy as quickly as possible.

Re:Not bad

[AmiMoJo]

The comparison with going to the moon is an interesting one. Lots of useful technologies came out of that effort, and it helped the US be leaders in things like semiconductors and material science. So although it cost a lot, it also provided a lot of economic benefits that are often hard to measure.

Germany's transition needs to be seen in that light. It's not just about doing the right thing, it's about reducing longer term costs (replacing/extending the current nuclear plants would be incredibly expensive) and creating new industries and new exports. Germany is now a world leader in renewable energy, a rapidly expanding market with high demand for experienced, skilled operators and advanced designs.

Re:Not bad

[bsolar]

From the link you provided:

Électricité de France (EDF) – the country's main electricity generation and distribution company – manages the country's nuclear power plants. EDF is substantially owned by the French government, with around 85% of EDF shares in government hands.

78.9% of Areva shares are owned by the French public sector company CEA and are therefore in public ownership.

EDF remains heavily in debt. Its profitability suffered during the recession which began in 2008. It made €3.9 billion in 2009, which fell to €1.02 billion in 2010, with provisions set aside amounting to €2.9 billion.

The Nuclear industry has been accused of significant cost overruns and failing to cover the total costs of operation, including waste management and decommissioning.

In 2016, the European Commission assessed that France's nuclear decommissioning liabilities were seriously underfunded, with only 23 billion euros of earmarked assets to cover 74.1 billion euros of expected decommissioning costs.

Re:Not bad

[LSD-OBS]

If you knew what a "regressive tax" is, I expect you would not have isolated the word "regressive" from its context.

Irony++

I have no idea what renewable energy government subsidies exist in Germany, nor do I understand their impact on taxation, but the parent comment makes the clear assertion that there is a greater relative financial burden on poorer consumers & taxpayers than on the more wealthy.

Whether or not this is true, the concept itself is internally consistent and semantically accurate.

Re:Not bad

[Ol Olsoc]

Who says you pay just the same? It costs a little more than the median US average price, and a lot lower than nearly half the states. And therefore they use less, get just as much (they are, if anything, getting more: it's colder on average over all Germany than it is on average over all the USA, even including Alaska), and pay less overall.

There's no need to sign you up. You don't sign up to use less. You just use less. You sign up to get more out of what you DO use by insulating your home, avoiding wasteful use of power (the sun and wind dry clothes just fine), and not being a stupid fuck, basically.

Some folks just don't get it. As I have pointed out many times, my energy conservation tactics have resulted in a net profit for me. I use less electricity than I did 15 years ago, and my bill is only ten percent more than my neighbors, who are in town for only a few days a month - they are paying almost the same as me for a home in maintenance mode, while I even have a hot tub spa. and am home every day except when on vacation.

It's fine I suppose if a person wants a huge vehicle that gets 10 mpg or less, and is satisfied with paying a hellava lot of their hard earned money ot an oil company. I just don't have a lot of sympathy when they bitch about the obvious solutions.

Every year technology has made strides in energy generation and storage, and every year the inertia crowd's whinging has become more hollow. Coal will stay in the ground, and Oil will become feedstock. Even if we did go balls to the wall oil and coal, we'd just reduce the recoverable amounts to a level that would be too expensive and not enough supply and do it sooner. And as a last thought, I don't know if this will be decried as cultural appropriation, but damnit, never ever bet against the Germans in matters of technology.

Impressive...

[jez9999]

"To be clear, this is impressive even by Germany's progressive standards."

No it isn't. It just shows their ongoing idiocy re: nuclear power. They could've reduced carbon (and other) emissions to zero by now if they'd increased nuclear output.

Re:Impressive...

[GuB-42]

Yeah, I wouldn't call a country shutting down nuclear power plants and building new coal plants "progressive".

If you look here : https://www.electricitymap.org... you'll see that most of the times, Germany is not that good. Right now it is at 414 gCO2/kWh, which is worse than the US (388) and 6 times worse than France (66). Ontario, Sweden and Norway are even better but they have the advantage of a high hydro capacity.
What all the good players have in common : nuclear power of course.

Re:hydro-electric

[phantomfive]

That sounds to me like a problem that can be solved with good engineering and proper design, just like many of the other environmental problems. I have spent something like a minute thinking about it.......

Engineers have been thinking about the problem for decades and haven't solved it. What are the chances you solved it with little thought?

And if I, with no expert knowledge, can think of what may well be a plausible way to address the issue, how much more could a proper team of engineers come up with, if they tried?

See this and this.

Nuclear Fission is a distraction ...

[Qbertino]

... and this proves it too.

Fission is not cost effective and only works with massive amounts of taxpayers money. And the only real effect it has is putting power in to the hands of few to the disadvantage of many.

The world as such should decommision Fission ASAP, just like Germany is doing. The next Tchernobyl/Fukushima Fuckup is bound to happen, so we might aswell slim down our chances of that happening ASAP.

My 2 eurocents.

Re:Nuclear Fission is a distraction ...

[Trailer Trash]

... and this proves it too.

Fission is not cost effective and only works with massive amounts of taxpayers money.

Yeah, unlike solar and wind <eyeroll>

In case you missed it, Germans pay the highest amount for electricity in the world due to their solar/wind investments, which provide less than 10% of their power. They make up for it by burning the world's dirtiest coal. I know, doesn't fit the narrative...

Not fake news, but agenda news

[zerofoo]

Turns out Germany uses a shit-ton of carbon based energy sources:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/ho...

Call me when renewables make a dent in their existing carbon based energy sources.

Before anyone accuses me of working for the carbon-based energy folks - I have a Model 3 on order - but I have no illusions as to what will be generating the electricity that I will use to charge it. In my area it's mostly Nuclear and Coal.

I expect more critical thought from Slashdot readers.