Neither of us have verified that that is at all necessary. You have some article claiming it. Yet Germany is already 50% alternative energy. The numbers do not jive. You are not questioning a suspicious source.
It is called supply side econ. Good luck with that Germany. We took one for the team. Now it is your turn. I get it. It is for suckers. The liars win hands down all day long. Enjoy the tax cuts. There will be little to nothing to show for the tax cuts. But enjoy them and hold your flag higher. Just lie lie lie lie lie…Oh and blame your poor. That works. The suckers love that.
Meanwhile the US is going to demand side econ and picking up the factory slack globally.
Alright, let’s go with the 50% figure. In round numbers that would be 280 TWh/yr for Germany. The country will need another 280 plus the growth in demand from electrification and economic growth. That growth will need another 190 TWh/yr, making total new supply needed by the end of the decade 470 TWh/yr.
How would you propose they get there?
DB2
We used to be trained in third grade math in the US. Long before there were calculators.
280 if that figure is correct by 2030…six years…43.34 per year…
Quiz me this. Will I be endlessly correcting math problems with data that has been handed to me that is highly questionable?
approximately 511.6 terawatt hours
Germany’s net electricity consumption amounted to approximately 511.6 terawatt hours in 2021. In comparison to the previous year, this represents an increase of roughly 2.4 percent. In 2021, Germany’s gross electricity generation stood at 588 terawatt hours.Feb 24, 2023
Your source is possibly way out to lunch. Not even close to where the wind power is expected by the German parliament to come from after the Parliament voted for funding of onshore wind power.
Germany sets renewable power record in 2022, but is off-track for 2030 target | Clean Energy Wire)%2C%20UBA%20forecast.
snippet
Shortly after taking office, the German coalition government put into motion one of the largest reform efforts on renewable energy and efficiency the country has seen. Russia’s war in Ukraine and the coinciding energy crisis have prompted the economy and climate ministry to present many amendments to existing laws and funding schemes much faster than planned. These are mainly geared towards boosting the country’s renewable energy capacity, especially onshore wind, but also to accelerate grid planning and the development of offshore wind connections, and to make building stock more efficient. Many of the reforms have already been decided in parliament during 2022. AGEE-Stat is made up of experts from various federal ministries and agencies and consolidates data on the development of renewable energy in Germany.
Germany energy generation was actually only about 20% that of the EU as of 2021
Total net electricity generation in the EU was 2 785 Terawatt hours (TWh) in 2021 …Germany had the highest level of net electricity generation in 2021 among the EU Member States, accounting for 20.1 % of the EU total
Speaking of the EU, they plan on eliminating the need for Russian fossil fuels by 2027 and reach over 40% renewable energy by 2030. Germany may be having issues with the transition (eliminating nuclear so early is problematic) but countries like Spain, Italy, and Sweden seem to be doing well.
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I agree with Sweden, but not so much with Spain and Italy.
In the electricity sector, the best measure of low greenhouse gas emissions is in grams of CO2 per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced. By that measure, Sweden is the best country in the EU, getting a large portion of power from nuclear and hydroelectric dams. Spain and Italy are better than Germany, but there are several countries with lower CO2 per kwh than both Spain and Italy.
2021 Greenhouse gas intensity, grams CO2(eq)/kwh Sweden 9 grams/kwh (nuclear, hydro) Luxembourg 45 (but Lux. imports most of its power) France 58 (mostly nuclear) Finland 70 (nuclear, hydro, biomass) Austria 82 (hydro) Latvia 106 Slovakia 113 Denmark 123 Lithuania 127 Croatia 138 Belgium 139 Spain 165 Portugal 167 Hungary 188 Slovenia 211 Romania 212 Italy 234 Ireland 332 Netherlands 339 Germany 348 Malta 349 Greece 397 Czechia 397 Bulgaria 398 Cyprus 605 Estonia 656 Poland 721
- Pete
From 2021 another estimate:
https://www.cleanenergywire.org/news/electricity-demand-germany-set-soar-700-billion-kwh-2030-energy-industry
As Germany seeks to achieve its 2030 climate protection targets with an increasing number of electric vehicles, heat pumps and hydrogen development, electricity demand will increase to some 700 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) annually by the end of the decade, according to figures published by the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW).
DB2
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Biden aims to have 30 gigawatts of offshore wind farms installed in the US by the end of the decade, up from basically nothing today. In Europe, nations including the UK, Germany and the Netherlands vowed earlier this year to reach a combined 120 gigawatts of wind power by 2030, more than quadruple the current capacity.
But with governments still intent on seeing their green goals deliver cost reductions for consumers, it’s not clear how they can achieve that kind of expansion.
DB2
It’s called the IRA. With the tax credits in the IRA, offshore wind achieves levelized cost competitive with coal by 2030:
and with natural gas by 2035
There has been $7.7B invested on offshore wind in the US since the IRA was signed with the great majority of the money going to US companies. That’s a lot of jobs. New US offshore wind investments hit $7.7bn post-IRA | Windpower Monthly
Wind energy components made in the USA are now price competitive with foreign makers, with the result that a wind energy supply chain is now being built in the US.
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Hopefully we can stop subsidizing fossil fuels. It is very wasteful.
Saying that first.
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The escalation of the debate in this thread turned out to be quite educational for me, and much appreciated.
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Where is your reference for this statement that Germany imports more electricity than is produces?
I need to remind you that France was a net importer of electricity for about two years when they had about 20% of their nuclear plants shutdown at a time for major repairs.
Below is the monthly trend for net Import Balance for Germany for this year. A positive number indicates imports, a negative number shows net exports. Germany was operating its last nuclear plants for the first three months, and shut them down in the middle of April. Since then, Germany has been a net importer of electricity.
Import Balance, Germany, 2023 Jan -3714 GWh Feb -3004 Mar -2289 Apr +122 May +3048 Jun +3695 Jul +2091
There is still a week to go in July, so the final number for this month could be higher.
France is a net exporter of electricity this year. Below is similar chart for France.
Of course, France has a large nuclear power fleet supplying the country, as well as its neighbors, with clean, very low carbon electricity. From the following, over 90% of the power in France this year comes from zero carbon sources (mostly nuclear, but also some hydro, wind, solar and biomass).
Germany, with its Energiewende policy, has gone big into renewable sources of power. But those sources (wind, solar) have such poor capacity factors, Germany still relies heavily on coal, natural gas and oil to keep the lights on. But they would still rather burn those fossil fuels than to let even one nuclear power plant operate. Funny that the Germans don’t mind importing nuclear generated electricity from France!
- Pete
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Germans hate all nuclear generated electricity near their borders and does not import very much electricity from France. Denmark and Norway provide most of the imports to Germany.
Germany is in a transition period and will have lower Total CO2 emissions than France in a few years. Are the French residential costs for electricity still higher than in Germany?
You have it backwards. Germans pay some of the highest electric rates in the EU. The rates in France are lower than average.
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Electricity_price_statistics
Electricity prices, H1 2022 Germany 0.3279 Euro per kwh France 0.2086 EU 0.2525
Germany’s adventure in building large amounts of renewable energy has resulted in high prices, and they still need to burn lots of fossil fuels to keep the lights on. Germany may be able to reduce or even eliminate coal and lignite burning, but those fuels will be replaced with natural gas, which is also a fossil fuel. The German government was counting on the Nordstream pipelines to provide that natural gas from Russia. However, recent events in Ukraine have forced the Germans to look elsewhere. The US will probably provide at least some of that gas.
- Pete
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The link has monthly electrical energy import/export numbers back through 2015. Here are the import totals for May+June+July in GWh; this year is definitely an outlier.
2023 8834 2022 1698 exported 2021 2213 2020 2558 2019 347 2018 7120 exported 2017 8601 exported 2016 4893 exported 2015 3975 exported
DB2
Looking at the data, the transition this year from exporter to importer is partially due to shutting down the nuclear plants, but also because of reduced output from the coal and lignite plants. Wind and solar have not compensated for the reduction in output, although hydro seems to be up a little. The net-net is increased electricity imports. We will see how the rest of the year goes, but I don’t see things changing a huge amount.
- Pete
Electricity prices in France extended gains to trade at their highest since the start of 2023, as the cap on power price growth went up to 15% from last year’s 4%. The change, which is set to remain in place until the end of the year, affected 20.54 million households and 1.45 million small businesses. Meanwhile, about 100,000 social housing buildings were also touched indirectly. The government’s ‘price shield’, activated in October 2021 amid post-pandemic recovery, has helped keep inflation lower in France than in other European countries. France’s electricity prices hit an all-time record of €743.84/MWh in August 2022 due to a slump in nuclear electricity generation and the restrictions by Russia on natural gas supplies following the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Highest prices in Europe.
Nope. Not even close.
Your previous post asked about “residential costs” of electricity. Residences pay the retail price charged by a local utility, and approved by some regulatory commission or government body.
Now you are moving the goalpost by providing a link about wholesale spot prices.
Let’s try to keep on the original subject of residential prices.
- Pete
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