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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

#391
post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not caring that renewables are decades away Pffft... If the government wuold decide to buy balcony solar systems for 1.000 Euro each for every household, that would come down to a mere 41 billion Euro for the whole state and that would solve lots of all of this. They found 100 billion for the Bundeswehr without any problem in the blink of an eye. If you really wanted, the whole energy topic would be set up and solv…

You're forgetting that not everyone wants such a thing on their balcony and that you'll need to find someone to manufacture all of that (other countries want their solar still, too; it doesn't help us to deny Australia years of solar panel production only to put many on cloudy north-facing German balconies). I don't know what the acceptance percentage as well as a realistic manufacturing rate is at such an order size…

That's what I mean with let's figure it out and stick to execution. Production will probably not meet demand at first, but we need to get going. And we need to get going big.

- Let's make it mandatory to install fixed solar systems for new development areas and any newly build commercial buildings. The state will subsidize 90% of the cost for the initial setup for private households, for companies it's just a tax deductible expense.

- You want to retrofit your existing house with a fixed solar system? That's 90% subsizidation for you, too!

- You have a multi-party house (details needed) or a professional housing company? You'll have to retrofit your buildings in 5 years of time from now on.

- Let's retrofit all public buildings with solar systems. No excuses, execution asap.

- The state will encourage research and development of energy storage sytems by providing funds to universities etc.

We'll also need to have lots of laws changed and have our energy companies put in to place, but if the cost is low for the individual person, people will just make this happen.

Yeah, it will cost some money, but the money is there, it's just an allocation problem.

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

#392
post #222
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why Germany produces almost 10 times as much CO2 per kWh as France. https://abload.de/img/img_20230705_133511_84efdp.jpg It's mind boggling.

This seems to assume that nuclear disposal is something clean.

Not clean, but contained.

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

#393
post #352

The price of electricity has been falling in Germany since the beginning of the year, the share of renewable energies in the electricity supply has risen to 65%. The level of gas storage is 20% higher than in recent years, even though there is no more gas flowing from Russia. Nevertheless, the price of gas and heating oil is falling in Germany. It seems to me that the catastrophic news regarding energy blackout etc.…

How much of that is annual fluctuations because they get more solar in the summer?

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

#394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They likely mean hydrogen.

Like an unproven technology at industry scale to power 50% of Germans electricity need reliably - all within the next 7 years? We don’t even have fast internet. Yeah.

What's industry scale? We have the technology to burn hydrogen and we have megawatt-scale electrolysis. What else do you want?

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

#395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like an unproven technology at industry scale to power 50% of Germans electricity need reliably - all within the next 7 years? We don’t even have fast internet. Yeah.

What's industry scale? We have the technology to burn hydrogen and we have megawatt-scale electrolysis. What else do you want?

Where do u get the hydrogen from and how do you transport it at the scale required is one of these “questions for starters”. Megawatt scale isn’t really gonna cut it - the largest one in Germany has 110 MW (?) so we would need almost 1000 of them to cover our need when the sun doesn’t shine or there aint no wind

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

#396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but you need 10s or 100s of GW of hydrogen electrolyzers, which are expensive, and they will only be running a small % of the the time (when there is excess renewables). I'm not sure how much existing natural gas infrastructure can be reused given how much lighter hydrogen is and I assume it needs much tighter tolerances on all the equipment compared to natgas.

Yeah, true. But it turned from a "we don't have enough of element XY on Earth to build that" to a "it sounds kind of expensive" problem. As it turns out people did the math already and building the hydrogen infrastructure is probably not prohibitively expensive, in fact it might turn out to be reasonably cheap. There is a tradeoff between overbuilding renewables, improving the grid, making the demand side more dynami…

Yes, but my point isn't so much it couldn't ever be done, it's that by the time you upgrade the grid massively, build the renewables, build the electrolyzers, build the hydrogen infrastructure and the infrastructure to convert it back to electricity, it's almost certainly way more expensive than already expensive nuclear to build.

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

#397
post #196
post #123

Germany's energy consumption per capita has dropped about 20% since its 1980s peak and has been trending down fairly sharply since 2007 [0]. AfD is polling extremely well on the back of a "stop this madness" environmental platform. German renewable energy policies have been a failure at securing human prosperity. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab...

> German renewable energy policies have been a failure at securing human prosperity. Bullshit. That chart looks the same for many developed nations. A strong downtrend. Just a few examples: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab...

The developed world has coordinated energy policy and they're all failing together. France and the US are both tinderboxes with mass riots in recent memory; likely linked to the lifestyle squeeze that poor people are undergoing. Germany and Japan are both deindustrialising due to lack of energy. Japan is accompanying this with a state of breathtakingly rapid population decline and they are still seeing per capita energy drop.

That is a graph of countries with failed energy policy. It has been a long time in the works.

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

#398
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> German renewable energy policies have been a failure at securing human prosperity. Bullshit. That chart looks the same for many developed nations. A strong downtrend. Just a few examples: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab...

Some people have a hard time understanding the concept of efficiency.

Order of magnitude, what specific efficiencies do you think are causing this?

because I think that is just completely silly. Efficiencies will trigger Jevons' paradox and result in energy use rising. What we're seeing in these graphs is a squeeze as Asian nations outcomplete the developed countries combined with a series of policy failures in the West as we choke out our own energy and industrial bases.

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

#399
post #120
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I swear, sometimes HN users can be so pedantic, they'll ask for the source that the earth is round or that the water is wet. Without a citation, any statement of ostensible fact is just unfounded rumor.

Source?

Touché!

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

#400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are people so obsessed with "solar roadways" or "solar train tracks"? This is a joke, a gimmick, it makes absolutely no sense. Well, except for the startups that are getting massive subsidies and grants for these clown projects. There are still millions of open-space square meters all over the country. Think of flat-roof warehouses, supermarkets, parking facilities and more. Those places are easy to access, easy…

Most of the roofs you mention are not built to support load.

Maybe in America?
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