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Germany recently broke its record for renewable energy generation by having 85 percent of its electricity come from renewable sources over the last weekend of April. On April 30, the bulk of electricity consume came from a mix of solar, wind, biomass and hydroelectric power. The record breaking clean energy was thanks to breezy and sunny weather in the north and warm weather in the south, providing plenty of sunlight and wind.
"Most of Germany's coal-fired power stations were not even operating on Sunday, April 30th, with renewable sources accounting for 85 per cent of electricity across the country," said Patrick Graichen of Agora Energiewende Initiative. "Nuclear power sources, which are planned to be completely phased out by 2022, were also severely reduced."
The country's Energiewende program aims to see a clean energy revolution by 2050. Graichen says that the tide will really start to turn by 2030 when many of the investments made by Germany since 2010 will come to fruition and majority or even totally renewable-powered days will become the norm.
Will producing its energy locally confer a strategic economic advantage on Germany, or is it just for bragging rights?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bob_super on Thursday May 18 2017, @06:08PM (2 children)
> Will producing its energy locally confer a strategic economic advantage
Obviously, anytime they don't have to convert their precious Euros into Dollars to enrich unpleasant governments worldwide in exchange for oil and gas, that's a plus.
Trade deficit isn't a good thing.
BUT ... that's only electricity, which while a significant amount of the total energy used, is not the majority. They'll keep needing to import gas and oil until they have some much extra current that they can store and convert it for heating, cars and heavy industrial uses...
(Score: 2) by Soylentbob on Thursday May 18 2017, @07:09PM
I'm exaggerating, you are right that electricity can not fill in for all places yet where energy is required. But there is an increasing number of use-cases where electricity can be used efficiently. Cars are becoming electric (which means the electricity needs to be stored in some way, so instead of storing it while charging the car it could as well just be stored when it is easily available and batteries swapped, or stored chemically and filled into a tank). Fertilizer can be created from air instead of oil, by adding energy. Heating becomes imo less important (0-energy-houses due to good heat-isolation become more common).
Electricity *could* be boosted by increasing output of nuclear power-plants if the goal is independence from Russia, although large parts of German population oppose that strategy. The plan to get rid of nuclear power also gives me some doubt if independence from Russia is a major concern in this context at all.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Thursday May 18 2017, @08:01PM
Well, there's also subsidies for building insulation, which reduces the energy required for heating. Energy you no longer need doesn't need to be replaced.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.