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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: 2) by kaszz on Thursday May 18 2017, @05:00PM (10 children)
Local production means redundancy. Renewable production probably also means less pollution, higher cost and more instability in the grid.
Now being able to tell the power company to stick their cable where the sun doesn't shine is in itself a big bonus ;)
(Score: 4, Funny) by maxwell demon on Thursday May 18 2017, @05:07PM (1 child)
You mean underground cables? :-)
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday May 18 2017, @05:44PM
Must be :p
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Thursday May 18 2017, @06:05PM (4 children)
The main strategic advantage of this is that it will help the Germans tremendously if the Russians try to cut off their natural gas supply (as they've at least threatened to do before). That threat is one of the major ways Russia protects itself from EU and US aggression.
The US response to the same threat has been to overthrow Iraq and try to overthrow Syria in the hopes of hooking up gas and oil pipelines from the Persian Gulf through what is now ISIS-controlled territory, Syria, Turkey, and into Europe starting at Bulgaria. A classic case of fighting the last war, since Europe's move towards renewables will make fossil fuels no longer as critical a strategic resource.
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(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @09:57PM (3 children)
The main strategic advantage of this is that it will help the Germans tremendously if the Russians try to cut off their natural gas supply (as they've at least threatened to do before).
No, it does not help at all. And no, it would definitely not help Russia at all either to do so.
I live in Germany. My flat has gas for heating. My *energy* consumption is 5x gas and 1x electricity. And I don't even use much heat in winter - this is mostly to heat water for 15 min shower! So, if gas is cut, then I have no hot water for shower anymore or I need to use 5x as much electricity as I do now to heat the water - ok, maybe 4x as it would be more efficient than 80%.
It's easy to BS about energy independence while most of the energy usage is fossil fuel. Electricity is not anywhere near the main energy usage of our economies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Germany#Overview [wikipedia.org]
These "feel good" summaries miss the entire point of why our economy is 100% reliant on fossil fuels and will remain so for at least another generation. Hint: *storage*
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @08:06AM (1 child)
Never head of heat pumps? They have a COP (Coefficient of performance) of around 3-3.5.
So you need around 1.5 "X" of electricity to get 5 "X" of heat.
So practically, gas might be 80% efficient while electricity with an heat pump is 300% efficient.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19 2017, @08:30AM
Excellent point about heat-pumps. The "outlet" of a german winter-heating heat pump would probably connect to the fridge anway :)
Also there are induction cookers. They generate a eddy current in the metal cook ware (only). The hot pan or pot will then heat the food. Very efficient and "dangerous" because needs to be baby-sitted because it cooks sooo fast : https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induction_cooking [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by pkrasimirov on Saturday May 20 2017, @10:02AM
Your link shows up to 2013. Here's for 2016 [wikimedia.org].
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday May 18 2017, @08:24PM (2 children)
Coal plants are probably necessary when the renewables don't shine on calm days. So what are the economics of keeping idle coal plants around to supplement when the renewable supply drops? Are there other better non-renewable plants to supplement for the variability of renewables?
Nuclear gets mentioned. I believe the technology could be safe. But humans are not. Humans will do incredibly stupid things. Cut corners. Put backup generators in the basement. Etc.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 18 2017, @10:05PM (1 child)
So what are the economics of keeping idle coal plants around to supplement when the renewable supply drops?
Coal power plants have about 50% of their cost as capital cost (building) and 50% for fuel. Gas power plants are a lot cheaper -- their costs are much more fuel than the building. The reason is coal is dirty and messy to transport. So idle coal plant is quite expensive. The only positive is that it emits a lot less CO2 - it still emits a pile because it has to be kept at temperature.
The bottom line is, electricity costs will just increase and they are already almost €0.30/kWh
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Friday May 19 2017, @05:35AM
It's not the energy cost that increases, it's the part of it that is paid for by normal consumers. In other words, the problem is not the renewable energies, it's a misguided subsidy system.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.