Germany Hits 62.7% Renewables in 2024 Electricity Mix, with Solar Contributing 14% (pv-magazine.com) 28
Due to a "rapid expansion of solar capacity," Germany generated 72.2 TWh of solar power in 2024, reports PV magazine, "accounting for 14% of its total electricity output, according to Germany's Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems.
"Wind power remained Germany's largest source of electricity in 2024, generating 136.4 TWh..." Hydropower also saw a slight increase, contributing 21.7 TWh in 2024. Total renewable energy generation reached 275.2 TWh, up 4.4% from 2023. Biomass plants, with an installed capacity of 9.1 GW, generated 36 TWh of electricity.
Generation from coal-fired power plants declined sharply in Germany in 2024, with lignite production dropping 8.4% and hard coal falling 27.6%, according to Energy Charts. Lignite-fired plants produced 71.1 TWh, roughly matching the total output from photovoltaic systems, while hard coal plants generated 24.2 TWh... Germany's CO2 emissions continued their downward trend, falling to 152 million tons in 2024, a 58% reduction from 1990 levels and more than half of 2014 levels...
Battery storage capacity saw substantial growth, with installed capacity rising from 8.6 GW to 12.1 GW and associated energy storage increasing from 12.7 GWh to 17.7 GWh. Germany's battery storage capacity now surpasses pumped storage by approximately 10 GW, underscoring the shift toward renewable energy integration.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the article.
"Wind power remained Germany's largest source of electricity in 2024, generating 136.4 TWh..." Hydropower also saw a slight increase, contributing 21.7 TWh in 2024. Total renewable energy generation reached 275.2 TWh, up 4.4% from 2023. Biomass plants, with an installed capacity of 9.1 GW, generated 36 TWh of electricity.
Generation from coal-fired power plants declined sharply in Germany in 2024, with lignite production dropping 8.4% and hard coal falling 27.6%, according to Energy Charts. Lignite-fired plants produced 71.1 TWh, roughly matching the total output from photovoltaic systems, while hard coal plants generated 24.2 TWh... Germany's CO2 emissions continued their downward trend, falling to 152 million tons in 2024, a 58% reduction from 1990 levels and more than half of 2014 levels...
Battery storage capacity saw substantial growth, with installed capacity rising from 8.6 GW to 12.1 GW and associated energy storage increasing from 12.7 GWh to 17.7 GWh. Germany's battery storage capacity now surpasses pumped storage by approximately 10 GW, underscoring the shift toward renewable energy integration.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader AmiMoJo for sharing the article.
While their economy collapses (Score:1)
Who needs an economy? (Score:3)
Who needs an economy if animals and plants can live a happy life in your Leftist utopia?
Re: (Score:3)
>> because of high energy prices.
You'll have to do better than that. The price of electricity in Germany has been somewhat higher than most of the EU for more than 10 years, and it still tracks with the rest of the EU. There has been a spike in cost recently as a result of the Ukraine war. The price actually dropped some last year and maybe that is due to the renewables being cheaper than fossil.
You can see that the curve of the charts is very similar.
https://www.statista.com/stati... [statista.com]
https://www.stati [statista.com]
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Lower than Italy's and Ireland's, and nearly the same as the UK's energy prices. source [statista.com]
California's residential electricity price is effectively about $0.35 per kilowatt hour. source [energysage.com]. So far the tech industry there doesn't seem like it is collapsing. But those guys always embraced globalization, so that's not a surprise.
Numerator and Denominator (Score:3)
The context is Germany has a massive shortfall of total available energy sending prices through the roof and causing a devastating shut down of industry.
People are cutting down forests at an unprecedented rate in modern times just to stay warm. Massive LNG imports from Texas are 4-5x as expensive per BTU.
Be careful what you wish for.
An EU minister just announced today that if the Germans elect AfD to reverse these policies the EU will nullify German elections - "to save Democracy".
Yeah, really.
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An EU minister just announced today that if the Germans elect AfD to reverse these policies the EU will nullify German elections - "to save Democracy".
Can you be more specific; who said that, or where it was reported?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The context is Germany has a massive shortfall of total available energy sending prices through the roof and causing a devastating shut down of industry.
People are cutting down forests at an unprecedented rate in modern times just to stay warm. Massive LNG imports from Texas are 4-5x as expensive per BTU.
Be careful what you wish for.
An EU minister just announced today that if the Germans elect AfD to reverse these policies the EU will nullify German elections - "to save Democracy".
Yeah, really.
Can you be more specific; who said that, or where it was reported?
As far as I can tell it came from a X account called Visegrád 24 that posted a video captioned: "Former European Commissioner Thierry Breton says the EU has mechanisms to nullify a potential election victory of the AfD" which was picked up and amplified by Elon Musk. This is basically a pile of bullshit, the EU has no such power except perhaps in the overactive imaginations of right-wing conspiracy theorists.
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Thanks. Here is a better source https://www.berliner-zeitung.d... [berliner-zeitung.de] (Firefox can translate that for you).
My take: of course you're right the EU does not have the power to cancel any election, and Breton isn't even in any position of power right now. Therefore when he says "we did it in Romania" (we annulled the Romanian presidential election), he means "we" in a generic sense ("we Europeans", not "we the powers of EU"), as in "we" he can only be a regular citizen, not a person of power.
His implication isn't "
Sucking Putin's dick for 25 years... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sucking Putin's dick for 25 years has an attached price.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
The context is Germany has a massive shortfall of total available energy sending prices through the roof and causing a devastating shut down of industry.
People are cutting down forests at an unprecedented rate in modern times just to stay warm. Massive LNG imports from Texas are 4-5x as expensive per BTU.
Be careful what you wish for.
An EU minister just announced today that if the Germans elect AfD to reverse these policies the EU will nullify German elections - "to save Democracy".
Yeah, really.
Elon? ... Is that you?
Re: (Score:3)
>> Germany has a massive shortfall of total available energy sending prices through the roof and causing a devastating shut down of industry.
Not according to the article. The chart shows that electricity generation has climbed steadily since the gas shutoff from Russia and now exceeds 2020 production.
"Energy Charts noted that Germany has sufficient capacity to produce and export electricity during winter, unlike Austria, Switzerland, and France, which face seasonal shortfalls."
That's failure. (Score:4, Interesting)
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In addition, Germany isn't "half as polluting as America".
2023 generation, USA was 369 g CO2 per kWh. Germany was 381 according to my source [ourworldindata.org].
The USA's going towards renewables almost as fast, but more hydro and nuclear would account for it.
Re: (Score:1)
Germany is already 1/2 as polluting as America.
Not "already" and not as a result of adding more solar or wind. Germany's per capita CO2 emissions was half that of America a full two decades ago - long before its current energy mix. In fact, its current per capita CO2 emissions are about 10% higher than 2003 - probably because it's burning proportionately more coal now.
What are you doing to fix that? Just more complaining about people who are doing better than you are again.
Digging deeper into the numbers is important. Germany's lack of progress indicates that it's strategies of decommissioning down nuclear plants and depending on Putin for natural gas weren'
Re: (Score:2)
Personally, I think Nord Stream 2 was Russia screwing up, not Biden's choice. The damage resembled more an internal explosion from a water hammer type effect.
It's also barely a blip climate wise, as it was shut down at the time.
Don't mention the imports (Score:2)
Imported electricity was 24.9 TWh, more than half from France's nuclear reactors. As to prices the AI thingo says "As of January 2025, electricity prices in Germany are the highest in Europe, with a family of three to four paying almost 40 cents per kilowatt hour. This is despite Germany offering subsidies to industrial companies, which some say are still too high to be competitive."
Need all the relevant data (Score:2)
What's the producer price of all this green energy, per kWh? What's the retail price per kWh?
Is total energy production up or down annually?
At least they gave us total Wh produced which is what we normally don't get.
Net net? (Score:1)
Germany's per capita CO2 emissions was just as low a full two decades ago - long before its current "green" energy mix.
In fact, its current per capita CO2 emissions are about 10% higher than 2003. It's burning proportionately more coal now due to decommissioning nuclear power and losing access to Putin's natural gas.