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Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

ise.fraunhofer.de

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Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#261

Post by iSnow »

JanSt wrote: post #150
iSnow wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Destatis claims the reason is that demand was measurably lower than 2022: https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2023/06...

The reason does not really matter for the math. The record is due to lower production and not a rapid build-up of renewable energy production.

It matters a lot.

First, if demand is not there, installed capacity isn't fully utilized. Since production costs of existing renewable installations is lower than carbon-based plants, a lull in demand will automatically increase the renewable percentage, that's neither good nor bad. But in fact, installed capacity is rising: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/bild/installierte-leistung-zu..., so no, the record is not only due to lower production.

Second, until 2022, renewables were actively hindered by the various Merkel cabinets. The roadmap going forward is way more aggressive, but of course planning takes some time. So a "rapid build-up" is still a multi-year thing.

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#262

Post by dermesser »

ozim wrote: post #215
Aachen wrote: post #8

Electricity, maybe. Energy? I wish. This headline would be more true if we had transportation fully electrified and all buildings heated with heat pumps, but last I heard the proposed law to require the latter transition to be started in 2024 was dropped again, and they're also still debating about starting to require transitioning the combustion engine fleets to electric by, what was it, 2030? I also still see stick…

Sorry on the nitpicking - we will have to dig into our pockets even if government does something. Government does not have magic money it is also “our money”. One would say government would levy fees on big companies but then companies will charge customers more.

Governments issue money, so yes they kind of do have magic money. Certainly a different access to money than private entities.

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#264

Post by ulfw »

Taig wrote: post #197
DeathArrow wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are mainly fake.

Some of them are emotional, sure. But what is fake about them?

" - If Japan can't handle it securely, why do we think we can?"

What does that even mean? There are no large earthquakes, let alone any tsunamis in Germany. And even if there were, most nuclear plants were not at the sea.

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#265

Post by phicoh »

eldaisfish wrote: post #198
iSnow wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, renewables are not decades away, they are at a major inflection point right now. While I deplore the shuttering of Germany's NPPs, nuclear would not have been a solution to the decarbonization challenge, as the times to build NPPs and the costs are prohibitive. Renewables are the cheapest source of energy right here and now, we should invest way more into researching grid-scale storage solutions…

Renewables are the cheapest source of energy PROVIDED the cost of providing energy when they are generating zero energy is paid for by someone else. This argument keeps coming up and is entirely wrong and very misleading. Renewable energy due it its intermittent nature creates a problem and does nothing to solve that problem. The cost of that solution must be factored into the cost of energy from renewable generation…

There was a perfectly reasonable transition strategy. Install as much solar and wind turbines as possible and rely on natural gas plants are other times. Natural gas plants are relatively cheap and can in the future be converted to hydrogen.

The big advantage is that solar and wind can directly reduce CO2 emissions, instead of waiting for decades for new nuclear power to come online.

Converting heating of buildings to heat pumps and cars to electrical also directly reduces CO2 emissions even if you generate electricity from natural gas.

There was one part where it went terribly wrong, and that was the idea source the natural gas almost exclusively from Russia...

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#266

Post by locallost »

mahkeiro wrote: post #259
locallost wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but it was until now not electrifying heating and transportation, so reduction is obviously a positive thing. Nothing beats emissions of a kWh you saved. The question might be, was there something sacrificed to do that, e.g. did economy suffer? This would be bad, but it's not the case, the GDP is still going up. The savings are related to energy efficiency and this will reap benefits basically forever.

There is no saving (or marginally) it’s just heavy industries and energy consuming process leaving Germany (BASF for instance). Overall just a displacement of the problem. We don’t care about GDP, what matters is global CO2 emission. In 2023 13.4% of new cars are electric in Germany but electricity production is the lowest in 15 years, go figure.

Sorry, but this is total nonsense. I realize it's not in the spirit of HN, but it's obvious you did not check any data at all.

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#267

Post by MagnumOpus »

malermeister wrote: post #260
jskrablin wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, targeting individual transport with inefficient public transport and bicycles while restarting abandoned coal power plants and abandoning running nuclear power plants is going to work wonderfully indeed.

With individual transport, you move ~2 tons of metal for a payload of one person, a weight/person ratio of 2. With high-speed rail, you move ~400 tons of metal for ~450 people, a ratio of ~0.9. [0] This does not even account for factors such as inherently more efficient transmission from steel to steel vs rubber/concrete and the more efficient electric engines of a modern train compared to the combustion engine. Neit…

You forget that most people don't live or work next to the rail station. That makes rail inefficient in the only way that matters to most people - their time.

(I say that as someone who takes trains to work most days.)

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#269

Post by mahkeiro »

Taig wrote: post #190
mahkeiro wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That this is a big pretend game to make the people responsible of the closing of nuclear power look not that bad in regard of the climate issue. Electricity generation should be increasing as we electrify transportation and heating. If this not what is happening then it means that globally the problem is just displaced. (Which doesn’t work at the planet scale)

Germany has more energy generation capacity installed than it had last year. I certainly wish there would be a push for even more renewable and storage capacity, though. The fact that Germany is generating less energy has nothing to do with the phase out of nuclear though.

Raw energy generation is the bad number if you don’t take into account capacity factor. To replace 1MW of nuclear generation with a capacity factor of 0.9 you need almost 5MW of wind at 0.2. The 21 GW of nuclear energy of 2009 have barely been replaced in 2023 when taking into account the capacity factor.

Re: Germany Achieves Record 57.7% Renewable Energy Share for First Half of 2023

#270

Post by Timon3 »

29_29 wrote: post #24
Timon3 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you say that?

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/germany-strong-...

"German Deindustrialization Is Still Looming" - so it hasn't actually begun?
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