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

[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

[ShanghaiBill]

Anyone want to complain how it's not working ?

Sure, I will. Electric power in Germany is more than twice as expensive as it is in America. That is because the costs of all the subsidies are pushed onto the consumer in what is effectively a regressive tax. Maybe what they are doing has some long term benefits, but considering that more than half of every electric bill goes to subsidise the renewables and the politically driven nuke closures, by many criteria it is "not working".

So what are they getting at such an enormous cost? This "85%" figure is a statistical fluke. Most days Germany gets 45% of their electric generation from coal, and 26% from lignite or "brown coal", the world's filthiest fuel. Overall, Germany's electricity generation produces nearly as much CO2 per kw-hr as America. There was no good reason to shut down their nukes, as they were already running and already fueled. Nearly all the cost of a nuke is in the construction, and while building new nukes is economically questionable, it is silly to shut down a stable running plant. If those plants are kept in operation, they could offset nearly all the lignite. Instead they are installing solar panels in the world's second cloudiest location (the Bering Sea is first).

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

[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

[LynnwoodRooster]

They need to do a better job, then? Because once you adjust for purchasing power of different currencies, Germany has about the most expensive electricity in the world (save for a few small island nations). Yes, it's renewable - it also is twice that of their nuclear powered neighbor, France. So kudos, Germany - you've proved that you can occasionally spike high in "renewables" generation for only twice the price of a sane, nuclear power approach!

Re:Not bad

[I'm New Around Here]

Maybe because it is very wrong on some points.

Germany is not "the size of a single average US State". It is larger than all but four states, those four being Alaska, Texas, California, and Montana.

Germany's population of 82,000,000 is not "a tiny fraction" of the US' 330,000,000, it's about one quarter.

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.

Not really 85% of power used

[tomhath]

Germany used X GWh that month. They produced 0.85X GWh from renewables.

No they didn't. They touched 85% for an instant when the wind kicked up on a Sunday morning before people got up and increased consumption.

It wasn't 85% for the month as you imply, and it wasn't even 85% for the weekend as the headline implies.

Re:Not really 85% of power used

[Mr D from 63]

Energy systems are only as good as their performance in high demand situations. They must be designed to handle the demand profile and therefore looking at the 'easy' times doesn't reflect the entire picture. Let looks at some other numbers besides that typical "we hit a hit percentage on a spring Sunday when little power was being used" scenario;

Spot production; (other sources or imports not listed);
May 8 at 23:30 Solar 0%, Wind 2.1%, Conventional 92%
May 10 at 1500 Solar 0%, Wind 0.04% Conventional 92%
These are not outlier moments, these are typical daily occurrences.

Total Electrical Production January 2017;
Solar 2%, Wind 7.95%, Conventional 80%


That is a glimpse of what 300 billion Euro in wind and solar achieves from a system capability standpoint.

Re:Not really 85% of power used

[Mr D from 63]

Lets looks at some full day productions percentages (Twh) for Germany;

Jan 6 2017: Solar=2.2% Wind=7.0% Conv =75.2% T=1.61 Twh
Jan 8 2017: Solar=0.3% Wind=3.2% Conv=79.0% T=1.46 Twh
Feb 5 2017: Solar=3.5% Wind=8.9% Conv=71.8% T=1.41 Twh
Mar 7 2017: Solar=2.8% Wind=6.7% Conv=75.4% T=1.60 Twh
Apr 4 2017: Solar=8.7% Wind=2.9% Conv=71.3% T=1.51 Twh

As we can see there are still many days in Germany where wind and solar struggle to provide even 10% of demand, and at times during those days actual contribution is less. I hope these numbers don't surprise anybody. They are exactly what we should expect.