Rapid wind and solar growth is weakening the case for imported gas even during the latest energy crisis
London, 21 May – Wind and solar generated more electricity than gas globally for the first month ever in April 2026, according to data analysed by global energy think tank Ember. Together, wind and solar generated 22% of global electricity in April 2026, compared with 20% from gas.
The milestone occurred during the first full month of the latest global energy crisis triggered by the conflict in the Middle East, highlighting how rapidly growing wind and solar generation is reshaping the global power mix even amid fossil fuel market volatility.
Wind and solar produced a record 531 TWh of electricity in April 2026, 54 TWh more than gas generation at 477 TWh. Five years ago, in April 2021, gas generation stood at a similar level (476 TWh), but was nearly double the combined generation from wind and solar (245 TWh).
If the wind and the Sun are free, and there is massive skim, scam and fraud being imposed on consumers of fossil fuels, that has to affect the economics if you’re doing the arithmetic.
Katherina Reiche is the Economy and Energy Minister of Germany. Last month she wrote a guest column for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung .
Let’s stop deluding ourselves about energy policy
However, in 2025, the share of renewables in total energy consumption was just under one-fifth…For years, we have lulled ourselves into a false sense of security with ambitious goals. 80% of electricity from renewables by 2030, climate neutrality by 2045—impressive figures that soothe our guilty consciences. But while we clung to these goals, electricity prices skyrocketed…
Yes, wind and sun don’t send a bill. But the overall system certainly does: EEG costs, capacity reserves, grid reserves, re-dispatch costs, grid subsidies, subsidies for lowering energy prices—all of this adds up to system costs of over 36 billion euros per year…
We’re spending nearly three billion euros just to curtail wind turbines and solar plants because the grids can’t handle the electricity. There’s no other industry that receives financing guaranteed for over 20 years and even collects compensation when its product isn’t needed. This can’t go on.
Sure, we’ve discussed that several times over the years here at METAR. For example, Albaby came up with a WAG of $23 billion per year. Add that to the $2 billion in subsidies for gas and oil and you get $25 billion for our 69 trillion BTU. That’s $0.36 billion per trillion BTU.
Solar subsidies are $7.5 billion for 1.8 trillion BTU. That works out to $4.2 billion per trillion BTU, which is almost 12x the subsidies for gas and oil.
I am sure he put a lot of thought into that number but it likely does not include many many ancillary costs such as all the death and destruction of 9/11.
Hat tip to Chris Cuomo for reminding me this week that our current TSA policies would not exist today if not for our meddling in the Middle East.
That is not the fault of wind and solar. The problem is that the Germans need to install more energy storage. The excess electricity generated can be stored to stop curtailment. California, Texas and China are adding battery storage and other energy storage as fast as they can to capture the excess energy from wind and solar. The German should follow their examples.
Katherina Reiche is not saying stop investing wind and solar, she just wants to implement a new energy policy:
Germany currently meets only one-fifth of its energy needs with renewable sources. Industry is suffering from rising prices. Now is the time for a serious energy policy, writes the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs—and outlines her strategy.
She has many Germans not in agreement with her new energy policy:
Katherina Reiche’s energy policy: A minister who confuses the problem with the solution
False figures, fatal consequences? What’s really behind the minister’s energy master plan?
The 85 billion trap: Why Katherina Reiche’s energy policy is leading in the wrong direction
In her widely discussed guest article for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), the new Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, Katherina Reiche, appears to deliver a scathing critique of the energy transition to date . Her central argument: the one-sided expansion of renewable energies is driving system costs to unaffordable levels and threatens to ruin Germany’s economic competitiveness. However, a closer look at the figures reveals a dangerous imbalance in this argument. Instead of addressing the true causes of curtailments and negative electricity prices—such as lagging grid expansion, a stagnant storage market, and billions in fossil fuel subsidies—Reiche uses her institutional background in the gas industry to justify a fossil fuel rollback. This article subjects the minister’s narrative to a comprehensive fact check. It demonstrates in detail why Germany doesn’t have a generation problem, but rather a massive integration problem—and why the planned construction of new gas-fired power plants could plunge the country into expensive and geopolitically high-risk dependencies for decades to come.
Who is Katherina Reiche – and why is her perspective crucial?
Katherina Reiche, born in Luckenwalde in 1973, has served as Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy in Friedrich Merz’s cabinet since May 6, 2025. Her career combines political and industrial experience in a way that is formative for her understanding of her role: 18 years as a member of the Bundestag for the CDU, at times serving as deputy parliamentary group leader, then as Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for the Environment and the Federal Ministry of Transport. After 2015, she moved into the private sector, taking over as Managing Director of the Association of Municipal Enterprises (VKU) and, from 2020, as CEO of Westenergie AG, an E.ON subsidiary that operates electricity, gas, and water networks in North Rhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Palatinate, and Lower Saxony.
This industrial background is not a minor detail, but rather the key to understanding her fundamental energy policy stance. Anyone who has spent five years at the helm of an integrated network operator and gas supplier inevitably brings an institutional perspective: security of supply as the guiding principle, conventional reserve capacities as an anchor of stability, and system costs as the central evaluation criterion. This stance is directly reflected in Reiche’s political course – and thus also in her much-cited guest article for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Critics, including the Greens and renewable energy industry associations, accuse her of sabotaging the energy transition and shaping it in favor of large fossil fuel corporations. The accusation of lobbying is circulating. Whether it’s true is a matter of interpretation. What can be objectively examined, however, is whether her diagnosis of German energy policy holds up to empirical reality.