Germany Produces Record-Breaking 5.1 Terawatt Hours of Solar Energy In One Month 687
oritonic1 writes "Germany is rapidly developing a tradition of shattering its own renewable energy goals and leaving the rest of the world in the dust. This past July was no exception, as the nation produced 5.1 TWh of solar power (PDF), beating not only its own solar production record, but also eclipsing the record 5TWh of wind power produced by German turbines in January. Renewables are doing so well, in fact, that one of Germany's biggest utilities is threatening to migrate to Turkey."
At what cost? (Score:3, Interesting)
Discussion of technological breakthroughs is meaningless without a discussion of the cost.
We have the technological capacity to build a hotel on the moon and run flights daily. We don't have the means to do it on an even remotely economically reasonable basis.
And in discussing costs, I mean real costs. Subsidies to the renewable energies and penalties/fees to the fossil fuel based energies are distortions to the economic picture and must be excluded for an honest discussion on the topic. Here in California I saw a state sponsored study that attempted to prove that recycling plastic bottles was more economic than treating them as trash. I actually read the study and what I found is that the authors allowed subsidies to be included in the revenues of the recycling agencies and extra fees charged to landfills (and related) to be counted in the costs of the trash side. Naturally if your agenda is recycling and you have regulatory control over the revenues and costs... you're studying your ability to exercise power: not the economics behind an industry.
Meanwhile in France... (Score:2, Interesting)
a single nuclear plant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravelines_Nuclear_Power_Plant) produces 38 Twh or about 7.5 times more than ALL of Germany's solar power! Don't get me wrong, I think renewables are amazing but the numbers look impressive until you compare them to how the world really powers itself...renewables have a LONG way to go.
Re:Tell me when the subsidie run out (Score:4, Interesting)
Oil/coal/gas get non expiring subsidies.
Re:NO NO NO (Score:5, Interesting)
Funny, my province's power is entirely supplied by a government-owned corporation, which hits about 98% renewable energy generation, has among the lowest energy prices in the world, and has still produced a consistent profit in the billions for decades. Doesn't seem to be failing to me.
Details from the English report (Score:5, Interesting)
Here are the numbers from the chart on page 4:
Electricity production: first seven months 2013
Uranium -- 52.1 TWh
Brown Coal -- 85.1 TWh
Hard Coal -- 65.5 TWh
Gas -- 23.8 TWh
Wind -- 24.2 TWh
Solar -- 19.4 TWh
Run of River -- 10.5 TWh
Total energy production was about 280.6 TWh, renewable was 54.1 TWh (or about 19.3% of all energy production).
Also interesting is the chart on page 9, "Monthly Production Solar". It is a bar graph, so these numbers are mostly my eyeball estimates:
January: 0.35 TWh (exact number)
February: 0.6 TWh (my estimate)
March: 2.3 TWh (my estimate)
April: 3.1 TWh (my estimate)
May: 3.3 TWh (my estimate)
June: 4.3 TWh (my estimate)
July: 5.1 TWh (exact number)
So winter really is bad for solar in Germany, but other months it isn't bad. Interestingly, wind does better in Winter... chart on page 10, "Monthly Production Wind", same deal as above (mostly eyeball estimates with two exact numbers):
January: 5.0 TWh (exact number)
February: 3.2 TWh (my estimate)
March: 4.7 TWh (my estimate)
April: 3.3 TWh (my estimate)
May: 2.8 TWh (my estimate)
June: 3.3 TWh (my estimate)
July: 1.7 TWh (exact number)
It doesn't look like renewables will be able to produce 100% of power needs any time soon in Germany, but they are producing about 1/5 of all energy. More than I expected.
Critics claim that Germany is paying six times as much [bbc.co.uk] for power, to finance all the renewables. (Per that article, 18 billion Euros paid on power that has a market value of 3 billion Euros) See also the Wikipedia article on Renewable energy in Germany [wikipedia.org].
Presumably though this is an investment and the renewables will keep providing power once their costs have been paid fully. I'm wondering if, over the operational lifetime of the solar and wind power equipment, they will wind up producing enough power that they will have actually been a good investment?
IMHO it would make more sense for them to keep the nuclear power plants and try to shut down coal plants, but that's not their plan.
Re:And it's only getting better (Score:2, Interesting)
200 W * 10 hours a day = 2 kWh per day. In a year, it'll produce perhaps 600 kWh (assuming 300 days of sun). Most panels are guaranteed for 20 years, so that's roughly 12000 kWh over the lifetime of the panel. 12000 kWh > 4000 kWh, no?
AC's formulae are correct, but his numeric values suck. Solar cell wattage output starts declining after a few years, and German cities only receive approx much less [currentresults.com] than the 3,000 sun-hours/year his calculations assume. 1650 sun-hours is a much more accurate estimate.
That immediately drops the theoretical max output way down to 6,600 kWh.
If PV efficiency drops from 100% when installed to 80% in 20 years, then for easy of calculations let's call it 90% efficiency. That drops the cell's total output to 5,940 kWh.
More than needed to manufacture, but is it enough to be economical?
Re:NO NO NO (Score:5, Interesting)
If you don't put on price on energy usage then there's no incentive for appliances and lights to become more efficient. Sure you pay more, but Germany is proof of what can be achieved with solar and wind. BTW Germany's economy is the best in the EU; they were last seeing bailing out the rest of Europe.
Don't ask how much something costs without also asking what you get for your money. Germany gets closer to energy self-sufficiency , creates a proof not of concept but of implementation for the rest of the world to benefit from which can and will offset more climate change which saves Germany and everyone else the astronomical, nation destroying costs - which will ultimately fail after they bankrupt us- involved with trying merely counteract climate change.
So what is the financial cost? It's negative, because the very people paying higher electricity costs today will be spared having to fork over the all the rest of their money to battle climate change later.
Don't ask how much something is, that's a brain-dead question. Ask what are you're getting for your money, and set the horizon for analysis to be the rest of your life, at least, or even your children's lives if you're the sort of person who is capable of being about something other than just yourself.
Thanks Germany !
signed,
America.
Re:NO NO NO (Score:5, Interesting)
And Germany plans to shut down on all those nights that when there are no wind? Give me a break.
Man, if only we had people smart enough to figure out how to store extra energy for the times when the sun isn't shining, or the wind isn't blowing.
</sarcasm>
It's not rocket science to figure out how to power a town using just the power available from a non 100% duty-cycle power source. Generate extra while you can and store it in capacitors.
Hell, the UK has a bunch of storage reservoirs waiting just to dump through turbines to handle the extra load from tea kettles fired up during breaks in the World Cup.