Live data from Hacker News

Germany Records Historic 12B KWh Solar Feed-In in July 2026

solarquarter.com

181–190 of 220 posts

Re: Germany Records Historic 12B KWh Solar Feed-In in July 2026

#181
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We won't stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere (Germany, India and China actually increased coal burning in 2026, in all 3 cases despite all the good news about solar installations). Also we can't prevent fossil fuel producers from digging up fossil fuels. And, because of entropy, reducing CO2 already in the atmosphere is a non-starter. For one thing, one can reasonably assume that would at minimum require doubling hu…

Germany's output is almost irrelevant in this context: it amounts to a mere 1.4% of the global output. To add to that: there are no good alternatives to coal as the stabilizer in a renewables-fed grid, for Germany. They don't have hydro and don't have nuclear. Even Spain now runs some coal despite having near-100% renewable grid for a year. That big blackout was a big lesson for all grid operators. Please don't shame…

> Germany's output is almost irrelevant in this context: it amounts to a mere 1.4% of the global output.

Conveniently Germany is about 1% of the world population. You realize that if most countries use the same argument nothing ever change? (It's only 1% how can it make a difference)

Re: Germany Records Historic 12B KWh Solar Feed-In in July 2026

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Yeah I was in Europe for a month last month and this summer was the best ever. I imagine you don't intend it like that, but last month killed an extra five thousand people in Germany alone [1], more than one thousand of them in a single day [2]. "People may have died and the economy may be in trouble but my summer was amazing" is not the best take. [1] https://www.dw.com/en/germany-june-heat-wave-linked-to-5000-...…

Both things can be true and I’m not commenting on the sad loss of life when I’m talking about something shallow like my vacation.

That being said, people have been living in 40C+ weather for thousands of years and it irks me when people complain about essentially really nice 35C weather because advanced developed economies haven’t taken any steps to mitigate any of this.

Re: Germany Records Historic 12B KWh Solar Feed-In in July 2026

#183
post #7

Glass half full, I suppose. Germany is in the grip of an unusual and prolonged drought -- clear skies, intense daytime heat, no rain. > https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78gn8zvrx4o I'm near Graz, in Austria, where we're also in the middle of a drought and in truth I can't remember a summer as hot as this one...

It's truly unbelievable hot right now, this "good news" of solar production is pretty sad actually

Hot does not necessarily mean good solar production. Solar production in winter can be equally good (although days are shorter).

Also the efficiency of panels decreases with higher temperatures.

Re: Germany Records Historic 12B KWh Solar Feed-In in July 2026

#184
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We won't stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere (Germany, India and China actually increased coal burning in 2026, in all 3 cases despite all the good news about solar installations). Also we can't prevent fossil fuel producers from digging up fossil fuels. And, because of entropy, reducing CO2 already in the atmosphere is a non-starter. For one thing, one can reasonably assume that would at minimum require doubling hu…

Germany's output is almost irrelevant in this context: it amounts to a mere 1.4% of the global output. To add to that: there are no good alternatives to coal as the stabilizer in a renewables-fed grid, for Germany. They don't have hydro and don't have nuclear. Even Spain now runs some coal despite having near-100% renewable grid for a year. That big blackout was a big lesson for all grid operators. Please don't shame…

> Even Spain now runs some coal despite having near-100% renewable grid for a year.

In fact Spain has less coal now than it did in 2025, or 2024, or 2023 and so on.

And no their grid isn't "near 100% renewable", they do have a lot more than most European countries but they have large gas imports too to run some of their conventional thermal power plants - what they're getting rid of, sensibly, is coal.

There's a 4x seasonal swing between summer and winter for Spain's solar power, and obviously the maximal swing (clear summer's day versus overcast mid-winter) is much larger, but they're nowhere close to being rid of fossil fuels even in July, much less January.

This whole "blackout was caused by renewables" stuff was crap when it was first spouted and didn't get any more plausible once we had more information.

Re: Germany Records Historic 12B KWh Solar Feed-In in July 2026

#185

Glass half full, I suppose. Germany is in the grip of an unusual and prolonged drought -- clear skies, intense daytime heat, no rain. > https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78gn8zvrx4o I'm near Graz, in Austria, where we're also in the middle of a drought and in truth I can't remember a summer as hot as this one...

I'm in Zurich and twice now the weather apps radars said it was raining heavily right where I am but no rain was making it to the ground. Instead it was unbelievably humid. I think the rain was falling but evaporating before it could reach the ground.

Re: Germany Records Historic 12B KWh Solar Feed-In in July 2026

#186
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. Plus the fact that it would have been politically absolutely infeasible to get anyone except the Greens to agree on a coal before nuclear phase out at any point until at least 2018. SPD, CDU especially were and are very close to to the coal industry (voters, company boards, etc.). In addition, without the Greens-pushed and initiated renewables subsidies, there would have been basically no big market worldwide f…

> ... Greens-pushed and initiated renewables subsidies, there would have been basically no big market worldwide for solar... Are you referring specifically to a German political party? Because that's a lot of credit to attribute to a single party in a single country. It might be well deserved, but seeing some supporting data would be nice.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/solar-electricity-per-cap...

The only other even slightly comparable country is Spain and they don't start until 2006/7.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Source... where the laws that kick-started that. Under a SPD-Greens government - it wouldn't have happened with the conservatives or (market) liberals, that's clear.

Re: Germany Records Historic 12B KWh Solar Feed-In in July 2026

#187
post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tax reduction will almost certainly be extended and not be allowed to sunset. Industry electricity costs are more or less in line with other highly developed countries around the world and will remain so. Also, many larger industrial companies do not source their electricity from the common grid, but have dedicated power plants and increasingly their own investments in renewable energy production.

No company invests billions into industry projects with that kind of political uncertainty. You can see it in the numbers: BASF stopped basically all investments in Germany. You cannot bet your whole company on a tax cut that was recently introduced and is already scheduled to disappear.

Managers bet their companies on more stupid stuff all the time. Elon Musk just bet SpaceX and Twitter on datacenters in space …

In the political reality of Germany there is literally 0 chance that these tax cuts won’t be extended. Low investment by BASF has many reasons, but their inability to get politicians to extend that tax cut isn’t one of them.

Re: Germany Records Historic 12B KWh Solar Feed-In in July 2026

#188
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hungary just instituted quite extreme power savings policies (including stopping all industrial train traffic during the day), because it can't cool its nuclear power plant due to a lack of water in the Danube and 40% of its electricity production went bye bye. Same situation in Romania and France had similar problems a few years ago and will likely have them again this year. "Green" supporters prefer renewable energ…

There is nothing resilient about renewables. Ask Spain about that. They aren't disrupted by one shock event but instead they are disrupted almost daily (and I'm not talking about nighttime). Also, Europe is too far north for Solar PV to make any sense at most of the places that people actually live...like Germany.

I live in Germany and my 12 kwp solar produces more energy than I need throughout the year for a house and a family of four including charging my car. Even if it would produce only 6 months a year, it world be a decent Investment and I get more like 9 months worth barely any grid supply out of it. The only reason we don’t go full offgrid is that the wood stove for heating in winter would be much more expensive to build and run than buying energy from the grid. What the hell are you talking about?

By the way: the number of power cuts I have experienced in the past 10 years is 1, because some idiot rammed a powerpole somewhere. The number of times I read about a power cut in the USA somewhere is more or less daily.

Re: Germany Records Historic 12B KWh Solar Feed-In in July 2026

#189

Glass half full, I suppose. Germany is in the grip of an unusual and prolonged drought -- clear skies, intense daytime heat, no rain. > https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78gn8zvrx4o I'm near Graz, in Austria, where we're also in the middle of a drought and in truth I can't remember a summer as hot as this one...

I'm in Zurich and twice now the weather apps radars said it was raining heavily right where I am but no rain was making it to the ground. Instead it was unbelievably humid. I think the rain was falling but evaporating before it could reach the ground.

A few weeks ago we had 30 degC indoors at 70% humidity after a brief thunderstorm. That felt... stressful - at a wet bulb temperatures of only 25 degC, see https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fc/Diagramm.... Apparently dangerous/lethal wet bulb temperatures begin at 30/31 degC and now I can see why.

Also what you describe is called "Virga".

Re: Germany Records Historic 12B KWh Solar Feed-In in July 2026

#190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

I know we're on a vibecoder shitposting forum but come on.... this "opinion" isn't even worthy of sharing to your friends after one too many helles. That's the kind of shit my grandpa would say after drinking too much at dinner. It's a serious topic, nobody cares you liked it when it was 30c in Berlin while the rest of the country is either in "extreme" or "very serious" drought
Post reply on HN