Germany Hits 62.7% Renewables in 2024 Electricity Mix, with Solar Contributing 14% (pv-magazine.com) 58
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:2)
Who needs an economy? (Score:2, Funny)
Who needs an economy if animals and plants can live a happy life in your Leftist utopia?
Re: (Score:2)
Suck harder.
That does appear to be California's goal.
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]
Re: (Score:2)
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.
The prices for electricity, and all energy more generally, will track across the EU because there's plenty of trade among the nations of the EU. What I wonder is if Germany's energy policies are driving up prices. I may have found my answer in the fine article.
Electricity prices on the exchange surged in November and December, making fossil fuel power plants more profitable and reducing imports.
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.
My guess is the price drop was from improved ability to ship in LNG from Canada, USA, and other nations. Russia declaring war on Ukraine has certainly made energy more expensive for the EU. Another contributing factor to rising prices would be tro
Re: (Score:2)
>> to see a greater percentage of energy from solar PV
Solar PV generated only 14%. "Wind power remained Germany's largest source of electricity in 2024"
Re: (Score:2)
PV generation set a production record of 72.2 TWh in 2024, despite less favorable weather, due to the rapid expansion of solar capacity. Fraunhofer ISE's âoeEnergy Chartsâ report shows that 12.4 TWh of this total was used for solar self-consumption, marking an 18% year-on-year increase and raising the share of PV in electricity generation to 14%. July was the record month, with solar systems producing 10.7 TWh.
The fine article stated that solar PV made a larger share of total electricity production so I'm confused on the point you were trying to make.
The fine article throws out a lot of numbers but still seems to leave me with an incomplete picture on what is happening. I'm getting the impression they cherry picked numbers to make solar PV look better than it is, which should not be a surprise from a website that advocates for solar PV.
Re: (Score:2)
My point is that the contribution of solar is small. It increased a couple percent, so your speculations about the effect of it are overblown.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
California's residential electricity price is effectively about $0.35 per kilowatt hour. source. So far the tech industry there doesn't seem like it is collapsing.
I noticed over the last few years of tech companies opening up some quite large data centers across the USA. When it comes to energy prices we are seeing tech companies funding the restart of some recently shuttered nuclear reactors to get reliable electricity at lowered costs. This is not a "collapse", yet, but it's not a good sign for the technology industry in California.
Re: (Score:2)
And if that were true, it would be a problem. It is not true. You should stop using Fox news.
Specifically electricity was indeed expensive for a while, when the French bought all they could to prop up their failing nuclear grid. But that is mostly over now.
Numerator and Denominator (Score:2, 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.
Re: (Score:2)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
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 "
Re: (Score:3)
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:2)
Well, Trump will do that now. He is already arranging a data for it.
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:Numerator and Denominator (Score:4, Informative)
>> 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."
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed, France in particular is an interesting example. Their nuclear plants can't handle the summer heat, and can't meet winter demand. They were reliant on neighbours to keep the lights on, which is fine within the EU, but it does lead to very expensive electricity when they have excess and renewables in Spain are exporting for pennies.
Re: Numerator and Denominator (Score:1)
Thatâ(TM)s patently false.
France had issues due to maintenance delayed from the covid period. Looks like the whole system is back at selling a number of GWh to Germany right now
Re: (Score:2)
>> selling a number of GWh to Germany right now
Lets see a cite for that.
Re: (Score:2)
France gets screwed regularly by renewable imports. They have to subsidize the nuclear plants to keep running, on top of the normal subsidies.
Their electricity is incredibly expensive, they just hide the cost in taxes so that bills are reasonable.
Re: (Score:2)
Nice hallucination you have there.
That's failure. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
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:2)
And in actual reality, Germany is not failing at all.
Re: (Score:2)
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)
There is no "lack of progress": Electricity production from coal and lignite in Germany in 1990 was 312 TWh, in 2000 it was 288 TWh, in 2010 263 TWh, in 2020 it was 135 TWh and in 2024 it fell to 105 TWh. So there is an accelerated removal of coal and lignite. Mining of hard coal was stopped in 2018 and mining of lignite fell to a value as low as in 1915.
Source for electricity production: https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/... [ag-energiebilanzen.de]
Re: (Score:2)
Germany is already 1/2 as polluting as America. What are you doing to fix that?
America is restarting recently shuttered nuclear power plants, and making plans for more new nuclear power plants. There's likely to be a continuation of natural gas and onshore wind to replace coal. It would be nice to see some new pipelines put in place, but we've seen politicians fight over those for decades.
If America's production of fossil fuels disturbs people over in the EU then we can stop shipping LNG over there. Would that make you feel better?
Germany's transition didn't fail (Score:1)
The nuclear reactors were shut down
Re: (Score:2)
That "failure" comes from coal plants in Germany needing to run to prop up the failing French grid. You have been told this before. Yet you keep lying.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
But France can't keep the lights on without imports from Germany.
Germany is proof that you can go from a very dirty grid to a largely renewable one without tanking your economy, and then surviving shocks like Russia starting a war and cutting off gas supplies.
It's also proof that you don't need nuclear to do it, which is fortunate because it's incredibly expensive and we don't really want every country on earth to be relying on it.
Nuclear fans were desperately hoping that Germany failed, and are even declar
Re: (Score:2)
France was Europes largest export of elecirctity in 2024.
Germany is at 372 g CO2 eq per kWh and their economy is in a bad spot.
They haven't deep decarbonized which means they haven't proven anything. Get back to me when the get below 100 g CO2 per kWh.
If Germany succeeded I would be the first person to admit I was wrong. If anything that last comment of yours was an example of projection from an antinuclear zealot.
Re: (Score:2)
There is no failure in creating an economy of scale for renewables that helped bring prices down dramatically, triggering global expansion of renewables.
While CO2 emissions from the electricity sections are still high (and was also high when Germany still used nuclear), it is dropping continuously as coal production continuous to fall. Coal mining in Germany stopped 2018 and lignite mining is on its lowest since 1915.
The main mistake was not investing earlier in renewables.
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:3)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Capacity factors for wind and solar for each month would be nice.
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.
Re: (Score:2)
My sources says otherwise. What's yours?
https://ourworldindata.org/gra... [ourworldindata.org]
German per capita CO2 emission fell a lot since 2003. In fact it's going down quite fast since 1990.
Re: (Score:1)
International Energy Agency. I reported incorrectly and reversed my numbers - you're right - it's down 20% since 2003 and, according to the same source, the US is down 30% although still at substantially more per capita in absolute terms.