Germany's Solar Power Success Story

[eridani]

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/312-16/16741-germanys-solar-power-success-story

t's been a long, dark winter in Germany. In fact, there hasn't been this little sun since people started tracking such things back in the early 1950s. Easter is around the corner, and the streets of Berlin are still covered in ice and snow. But spring will come, and when the snow finally melts, it will reveal the glossy black sheen of photovoltaic solar panels glinting from the North Sea to the Bavarian Alps.

Solar panels line Germany's residential rooftops and top its low-slung barns. They sprout in orderly rows along train tracks and cover hills of coal mine tailings in what used to be East Germany. Old Soviet military bases, too polluted to use for anything else, have been turned into solar installations.

Twenty-two percent of Germany's power is generated with renewables. Solar provides close to a quarter of that. The southern German state of Bavaria, population 12.5 million, has three photovoltaic panels per resident, which adds up to more installed solar capacity than in the entire United States.

With a long history of coal mining and heavy industry and the aforementioned winter gloom, Germany is not the country you'd naturally think of as a solar power. And yet a combination of canny regulation and widespread public support for renewables have made Germany an unlikely leader in the global green-power movement-and created a groundswell of small-scale power generation that could upend the dominance of traditional power companies.

[cantbeserious]

1. And America Pays Lip Service To Energy Independence

eom

[valerief]

2. America pays lip service to EVERYTHING. And the rich get richer. nt

[tclambert]

3. We could have done that. But we let Exxon-Mobil set our energy policies . . . for the last 40 years.

For every energy crisis, they prescribe the same thing--more oil.

[NewJeffCT]

6. I know - just imagine if the country had followed

Jimmy Carter's lead in the late 70s - we'd probably be off of foreign oil completely and have less pollution.

[Yo_Mama]

9. We don't use oil for electricity!

There's a very small fraction generated that way, mostly used by refineries themselves to burn unsaleable byproducts.

[Mira]

4. I think this is a perfect time to remind us that

the last time this issue rolled around - a few months ago - Fox Channel made it a point to enlighten us that Germany was so much more sunny than the United States, and therefore it was easy for "them".

[NewJeffCT]

5. But, according to Fox News...

Germany is sunny 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. What they did there could never be duplicated because Germany's perfect always sunny weather.

(ok, maybe I exaggerate, but they did say Germany was much sunnier than the US...)

[n2doc]

7. As Fox might say...

[Yo_Mama]

8. If this is success, I want failure

I have nothing against solar power. It makes a lot of sense in many places, although people remain unrealistic about grid problems and costs. But as the costs come down it really makes increasing sense in many sunnier areas.

But in Germany, it's been a failure. An outright failure. They are spending a huge amount of their money on PV solar in subsidies, and they get relatively little for it:
http://www.germanenergyblog.de/?p=11254
When you have installed that much capacity and you are only getting 6.1% of your electricity from solar (due to drop over the whole year), and the solar subsidies account for a large amount of the renewables surcharge (currently up to over 9 cents USD per kwh including all the subsidies plus taxes and doomed to increase), and you have to pass laws preventing utilities from shutting old, polluting power plants, many of which were already supposed to be shut down,
http://www.germanenergyblog.de/?p=12630
and you are going to have to pay additional subsidies to keep those open, it has to be obvious that this is not working.

How many bleeping PV panels do you think they should install per resident? 10? It wouldn't get them close to their renewable energy goal - it would just overload the grids in the spring. (When you are topping out at 50-30% of total consumption in the spring with the current installed base, installing more in the same places will blow up the existing line capacity.)
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-05/28/germany-sets-solar-power-record

In Italy, Spain, New Mexico and a lot of CA, you get a LOT more power out of each solar panel. Further, the higher draw periods for electricity match a lot better in say CA. So the relative cost is much less, which means you can better afford to put in the infrastructure investments and pay for expensive backup power.

In Germany, they ain't getting much bang for the buck, which is actually preventing them from reaching their goal. They have to invest in other types of renewables to keep the power on, not to mention new fossil fuel plants! They have to build the grid to transport the power! They're not getting anywhere with their wind and line projects, and they have already overloaded the spring line capacities in some areas with the solar.
http://www.germanenergyblog.de/?p=11413

Seriously, I understand that a lot of people know literally nothing about how an electricity grid works, but surely knowing that the majority of PV power in Germany is produced in just about four hours a day, coupled with the fact that it is concentrated in less than half the year, ought to suggest a big problem, along with the fact that the current renewables electricity surcharge is already more than many US consumers pay per kwh, and it isn't even covering funding of the planned needs.

I am quite serious about renewable and sustainable power, which is why this sort of thing aggravates me so. Trying to portray a policy mistake as a success doesn't help anyone.

[eridani]

10. Clearly we need better storage options for peak periods n/t

[Yo_Mama]

13. Yes, we do.

Good storage options solve a host of problems. That makes building the grids far more cost effective.

I am hopeful that we have some upcoming developments there which will really help.

[NNadir]

11. Shhhhhhh...Telling the truth flies in the face of what people want to hear.

Actually however, the solar industry is a failure everywhere, if one considers how many hundreds of billions of dollars, euros, yen and yaun have been thrown at this toxic fantasy to produce after nearly six decades of insipid cheering to produce just one half of one exajoule per year on a planet with a demand for 520 exajoules per year.

If you want to know why in 2013, the planetary atmosphere seems to be accumulating more dangerous fossil fuel waste per week than in any time recorded, the "solar will save us" fantasy would be a good place to start.

Worldwide, the solar industry can't generate enough electricity to run the servers dedicated to telling us how great the solar industry is.

[cprise]

12. This is a pile of steaming, cherry-picked 'facts'

For one, if they get more out of the panels than they put in, then its a success. The financial sector will have to realign to that reality.

Second, Germany is shifting its incentives from generation to storage. That is going to spur a lot of innovation especially for use by small stakeholders.

At large scales, they are developing pumped hydro and other storage. This past December Germany made its largest such deal thus far, bringing a considerable amount of Norway's hydro storage capacity online:

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/7404

http://www.elp.com/articles/2012/12/germany-norway-to-share-renewable-energy-across-subsea-cable.html


As for places like Spain and Italy getting more energy each panel/day out of solar -- That is great, and there's no reason to think otherwise unless you regard energy production as some kind of zero-sum game.

[wtmusic]

14. In the last three months there has been 1 hour/day of sunshine

and that has provided 5% of Germany's energy?

Nonsense.

[eridani]

15. Why don't you do the math before you say that? n/t

[FBaggins]

16. That would have to be some pretty magical math.

Solar produced about 5% of Germany's electricity last year overall. There's no way that it did so over the last three months (i.e., winter) - regardless of whether it's one hour a day or not.

[eridani]

17. Post # 14 stated that the 5% figure is wrong because--

--winter in Germany is overcast.

[wtmusic]

18. So that would be when coal fills in?

With nuclear there was no carbon at all.

I guess solar isn't as clean as some think.

[cprise]

19. That's when wind power fills in

Wind generation is greater during the windy winter months over there.

Also, a little reminder that your canard about German solar propping up coal power has been debunked.

If anything, it is spurring development of other renewables (like geothermal) along with storage. IMO, there is no reason to think at this point the German switchover to renewables won't succeed.

[wtmusic]

20. Coal doesn't need any propping up, it's vice versa

You didn't hear that from me.

The power mix is virtually unchanged, but is slightly dirtier with less wind than a year ago. Germany's going in the wrong direction, and your enthusiasm is premature.

[kristopher]

21. Here it is in graphs

Courtesy of Paul Gipe









Look at net exports!












That should help clarify the situation.

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/graph-of-the-day-german-gas-nuclear-fall-while-renewables-grow-73346