Germany Gets 16% from Solar Power and Renewable Energy Source
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29 June 2010 | posted by: Andres Ruiz | 6 Comments
Solar Power to Energy. Ten years ago Germany launched a renewable energy plan on an unprecedented scale, setting a premium price on solar and other alternative power sources. Their policy offers lessons to Americans for dealing with climate change and other problems in many ways, encouraging the use of solar power energy and alternative power sources. Accounting for a total of 16 percent of all energy production, the share of renewable energy continues to grow this year in Germany, driven by the world’s largest photovoltaic market. The government has raised its target for the next decade from 20 to 30 percent and this will also generate almost 300,000 new jobs in clean power. The International Energy Agency praised Germany’s commitment to green energy policies, but advocated also for maintaining their nuclear power plants. Under an existing law, most of the of the country’s 17 nuclear power plants will be shut down a decade from now and according to the International Energy Agency, this will increase reliance on energy imports, particularly natural gas. More German companies are also interested to support different solar power energy projects in other countries. For example a a feasibility report for Pakistan has already been formulated by the German company Azur Energy Group that will set up a 50 Mega Watt Solar Power project in this Asian country. Enlux Solar is another German major player in the green energy that is expected to provide not only funds, but also technical and strategic expertise to Ontario Solar Provider (OSP). Germany showed that renewable energy can become a big business, worthy of investment and U.S. may learn from their experiment and reap the rewards. Image Credit: |
Talk about misleading…
Of that 16%, how much of it is hydroelectric power, which the US is currently dismantling at an alarming rate?
How much of it is CO2 emitting biomass or ‘alternative’ natural gas?
The smallest amount of research will show that Germany actually gets less than 1% of its power from Solar panels.
Nice try though.
A billion dollars a year in solar pv subsidies for what amounts to less then a single nuclear power plant worth of generation doesn’t sound like ‘good economic policy’ to me.
Despite an increase in ‘renewable generation capacity’ the amount of electricity from renewable actually dropped in 2009 in Germany.
But then Germany has an interesting energy policy, they subsidize coal,wind,solar and tax nuclear.
Germany also conveninetly imports plenty of nuclear power from France to fill in the gaps left by intermittent sources like wind and solar. Of course the French don’t mind because power becomes very expensive when it crosses invisible lines. This is why Germany is delaying the closure of it’s nuclear plants because they will simply be forced to replace German nuclear with imported French nuclear at a higher cost.
Jack Gamble: That’s not true, germany is actually exporting electricity. The reason for the delay of the nuclear phaseout is just a political one due to a changed government that has some pro-nuclear ideologists.
harrywr2: There is no nuclear tax in germany. It is just a proposal at the moment in the discussion, no decision about that yet. Hard coal is subsidised, but that’s phased-out within the next years.
Germany HAS exported power to France during a record heat wave and drought last year actually. There may even still be times during lulls in demand where Germany sends power across borders but in the majority of cases, French nuclear is sent to Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and the UK to the tune of 60 to 80 TWH per year.
Now Germany currently gets about 1/4 of it’s electricity from nuclear. If you take 1/4 of the available power off of the German grid, where do you think that power is going to come from? Answer: expensive CO2 emitting natural gas or imported French nuclear. Now before you tout the wind/solar party line, let’s be reasonable here – even if you DOUBLE the amount of power Germany is getting from solar power in the next few years then we’re still only talking about 1.5% of demand. That leaves another 23.5% of demand to be satisfied and everyone knows natural gas or imports are the only options there.
Jack Gamble: Your numbers are just wrong. Sometimes Germany is importing electricity, sometimes exporting (that’s just normal in an electricity market and makes sense), but it’s a net exporter. Just today statistics came out that in the first quarter, 6.7 % of germany’s electricity was exported.
(german article here )
You talk about co2 emitting natural gas. Do you think your nuclear plants are carbon free? If you take into account the full scale of nuclear power including mining, transports and waste managemant, it has carbon emissions comparable to natural gas. And the emissions of nuclear are increasing, because the easily minable uranium ressources are declining (though the same is true for natural gas and other fossil fuels).
One large replacement for the nuclear plants will be wind power, which still has a lot of potential in germany, especially in the south, where the same pro-nuclear ideologists that want longer lifetime for their plants fight against wind power. It needs combination with storage technology, there are some rather interesting developments in that area like pressure storage or converting co2 from the air to natural gas. I hope the second big thing will be energy savings. Because after all, that’s the cheapest way to get energy: Just don’t use it by being more efficient.
Solar power will play it’s role on the long term. You are right that it plays a minor role at the moment – but it still makes sense to develop the technology, because it’s the only energy form that has nearly unlimited potential. On the long term, it’s a simple fact that all energy forms with limited ressources, that means all fossil fuels and all nuclear, needs to be replaced with renewables.
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