Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed • Hacker News Board

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#31

Post by eigenspace » Mon, Mar 25, 2024, 1:45 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #5

Germany's energy production is below 1970s levels and their per capita figures are in a grim state [0]. As with much of Europe, it makes for worrying reading. It would be extremely impressive if they can remain a manufacturing leader through this. If there is less energy, someone will have to use less energy. As far as I can tell that means either compromising living standards or giving up some heavy manufacturing. I…

In addition to things mentioned by other users, electricity production is also misleading there because Germany's grid isn't a closed system. It's strongly coupled to the wider european power grid. Germany's international grid connections are so wide that it's not even that abnormal for Germany to import or export more than a third of their total load from neighbouring countries.

A better metric would be to look at the total load on the German electrical grid, and if you look at that, you'll see that load has decreased a little over the past couple of years, reflecting the real economic downturn, but the dip is quite small compared to how much electricity generation has decreased.

Germany is simply exporting less electricity, and also importing more of it.

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#32

Post by kennethwolters » Mon, Mar 25, 2024, 1:46 PM UTC

dependsontheq wrote: post #15

roenxi wrote: post #5

Germany's energy production is below 1970s levels and their per capita figures are in a grim state [0]. As with much of Europe, it makes for worrying reading. It would be extremely impressive if they can remain a manufacturing leader through this. If there is less energy, someone will have to use less energy. As far as I can tell that means either compromising living standards or giving up some heavy manufacturing. I…

It really makes no sense to look at per capita figures this way. I am driving an electric car in Germany now and I built a new home with better insulation and I have LED lights. My per capita figures went way down, I am also taking my cargo bike in the city everywhere, so my per capita figures went down again. There's a very relevant question about the viability of energy intensive industries in Germany, but even tha…

I think the main point was that it is bad that Germany produces less energy over the decades. And that manufacturing in Germany might disappear as a consequence, which would be bad for Germany.

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#33

Post by Rinzler89 » Mon, Mar 25, 2024, 1:47 PM UTC

dependsontheq wrote: post #15

roenxi wrote: post #5

Germany's energy production is below 1970s levels and their per capita figures are in a grim state [0]. As with much of Europe, it makes for worrying reading. It would be extremely impressive if they can remain a manufacturing leader through this. If there is less energy, someone will have to use less energy. As far as I can tell that means either compromising living standards or giving up some heavy manufacturing. I…

It really makes no sense to look at per capita figures this way. I am driving an electric car in Germany now and I built a new home with better insulation and I have LED lights. My per capita figures went way down, I am also taking my cargo bike in the city everywhere, so my per capita figures went down again. There's a very relevant question about the viability of energy intensive industries in Germany, but even tha…

> I am driving an electric car in Germany now and I built a new home

Most people in Germany can't afford to buy an apartment let alone build a new house and you're taking as if your situation si representative for the average German.

Just because you're wealthy enough to afford a new EV and to build a new modern house, doesn't eman Germany has no problems.

You're proving the point that ecology is a tax on the poor, as the wealthy can afford to buy EVs and build new well insulated homes with solar panels and heat pump making their running costs super low, while poor people who can't, will own older ICE cars and older homes that are much worse energy efficient meaning they'll pay way more in running costs than the rich despite having less income leading to ever increasing wealth inequality.

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#34

Post by alephnerd » Mon, Mar 25, 2024, 1:47 PM UTC

dependsontheq wrote: post #15

roenxi wrote: post #5

Germany's energy production is below 1970s levels and their per capita figures are in a grim state [0]. As with much of Europe, it makes for worrying reading. It would be extremely impressive if they can remain a manufacturing leader through this. If there is less energy, someone will have to use less energy. As far as I can tell that means either compromising living standards or giving up some heavy manufacturing. I…

It really makes no sense to look at per capita figures this way. I am driving an electric car in Germany now and I built a new home with better insulation and I have LED lights. My per capita figures went way down, I am also taking my cargo bike in the city everywhere, so my per capita figures went down again. There's a very relevant question about the viability of energy intensive industries in Germany, but even tha…

Per Capita is a lossy indicator, and you bring up a key point a lot of people on here seem to forget - you cannot analyze economic metrics in isolation.

Economic Metrics are sort of like the dashboard of a car - you need to analyze the speedometer, the odometer, the gas gauge/battery level, tire pressure, etc when driving.

Concentrating on one metric alone is useless as it is a dynamic system.

There are changes happening in Germany. That said, it is slower than in other countries, but then again, better late than never.

There are some very prominent issues with Germany, but it appears that Germany and the US seem to get the brunt of bad takes (often by Americans and Germans respectively). I've found both countries to be so similar in personality and outlook that it leads to clashes ("I hate me" - Jerry Seinfeld)

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#35

Post by brnt » Mon, Mar 25, 2024, 1:48 PM UTC

Neil44 wrote: post #27

hcfman wrote: post #2

I still don't see this as being a valid reason for disavantaging the planet. Like they did in the EU when the Belgiam politicial managed to get a tax imposed to make solar panels more expensive from Chain. One would expect Germanies business to be thriving now. But to make solar panels artificially more expensive for any reason at all is extreme folly for the planet if anyone cares about that.

Because the 'just buy everything from china' strategy is risky and shortsighted. If you have zero local manufacturing capability you are under china's power.

'Buy manufacturing from China' is a bit like 'buying gas from Russia', or so we will all say once that came crushing down too.

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#36

Post by eigenspace » Mon, Mar 25, 2024, 1:48 PM UTC

throwaway220033 wrote: post #26

dependsontheq wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really makes no sense to look at per capita figures this way. I am driving an electric car in Germany now and I built a new home with better insulation and I have LED lights. My per capita figures went way down, I am also taking my cargo bike in the city everywhere, so my per capita figures went down again. There's a very relevant question about the viability of energy intensive industries in Germany, but even tha…

Congrats being an exemplary citizen but how does your electric car and cargo bike play role in Germany's manufacturing?

Presumably they were just giving an example. The huge spike in German energy costs absolutely did push manufacturers to find ways to be more energy efficient in a very similar way it pushed regular consumers to also be more conscious of their energy use.

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#37

Post by panick21_ » Mon, Mar 25, 2024, 1:48 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #5

Germany's energy production is below 1970s levels and their per capita figures are in a grim state [0]. As with much of Europe, it makes for worrying reading. It would be extremely impressive if they can remain a manufacturing leader through this. If there is less energy, someone will have to use less energy. As far as I can tell that means either compromising living standards or giving up some heavy manufacturing. I…

They should have built nuclear plants instead of ripping them down.

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#38

Post by nradov » Mon, Mar 25, 2024, 1:50 PM UTC

jcfrei wrote: post #19

I'm not convinced that the US approach with heavy protectionism is a good idea in the specific case of solar panels. It's a pretty standardized product and if another country is willing to subsidize the European consumer with cheap panels - where's the harm? It's not an incredibly sophisticated product like chips manufacturing - where if we suddenly needed to manufacture entirely on our own we would be completely una…

If you're trading with an ally over secure routes then sure, that makes a lot of sense. But Pax Americana is breaking down and that threatens the stability of the whole global trading system. And China is growing increasingly expansionist as they attempt to secure their own sea lines of communication. A war over Taiwan isn't impossible within the next decade, and if that happens then all bulk trade between Germany and China could be cut off for years.

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#39

Post by faeriechangling » Mon, Mar 25, 2024, 1:54 PM UTC

jddj wrote: post #22

_Microft wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add a few other countries to the list and see how their curves look almost the same as Germany's... (The situation is not much different on the other graphs) https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-use?tab... Edit: Here's the same (semi-randomly chosen) set of countries, applied to the same article (see parents [0]-link) in full: https://ourworldindata.org/energy/country/germany?country=DE...

Without speaking to whether or not it's valid conjecture, it's become necessary to treat any Germany is dying material with a little extra skepticism due to it being used as a polemic talking point about what happens when you go all in on renewables, etc.

It’s also probable per capita energy usage will decline no matter what we do because affordable fossil fuel stocks are due to collapse before the population does. Increasing per capita energy usage as a policy goal seems profoundly unwise to me, even without accounting for global warming, and if we do it becomes even less wise.

Re: Germany's solar panel industry, once a leader, is getting squeezed

#40

Post by sofixa » Mon, Mar 25, 2024, 1:55 PM UTC

kennethwolters wrote: post #32

dependsontheq wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really makes no sense to look at per capita figures this way. I am driving an electric car in Germany now and I built a new home with better insulation and I have LED lights. My per capita figures went way down, I am also taking my cargo bike in the city everywhere, so my per capita figures went down again. There's a very relevant question about the viability of energy intensive industries in Germany, but even tha…

I think the main point was that it is bad that Germany produces less energy over the decades. And that manufacturing in Germany might disappear as a consequence, which would be bad for Germany.

> I think the main point was that it is bad that Germany produces less energy over the decades

And I think the counterpoint is that all sorts of processes are vastly more efficient nowadays, so less energy isn't necessarily indicative of bad things. If a factory switches to LED lights, more efficient machines, installs a few solar panels on the roof, starts using electric golf carts for people to move around the factory grounds, upgrades their computers to modern ones, implements smart switches so that everything is really cut off at night, etc. their electricity consumption will be drastically down... and that doesn't mean there will be less output.