Jack of all trades
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Economy Minister Robert Habeck has for months pushed for an energy subsidy scheme, arguing that German industry faces five tough years before the transition to renewable energies bears fruit. The top Green politician has warned that, without state support, "we will no longer have industry," as companies would shift operations to countries like France or the U.S., where energy prices are much lower.
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https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-energy-price-subsidy-industry-competition/
Jack of all trades
Yep. Comparing by latitudes the US spans roughly between Morocco and Italy. Germany and UK are at a similar latitude to southern Canada.
CelloMom On Cars
Despite the high altitude, solar is being developed in both Germany and famously rainy Netherlands.
I don't double-guess those developers, I assume they did their due diligence, and they would not be investing in solar in these regions if they didn't think there was money to be made!
The secret sauce: wind energy.
Wind and solar are complementary in NL and D.
Jonathan Schofield
@jackofalltrades @CelloMomOnCars although I note that even a northern state like Maine is at the same latitude as the Bordeaux estuary. I guess the US as a whole is a lot more south than I tend to think of
Jack of all trades
For comparison, average solar capacity factor for the whole US varies between 13.1% in December and 33.4% in June.
Source: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/epm_table_grapher.php?t=epmt_6_07_b
Jonathan Schofield
@jackofalltrades @CelloMomOnCars that must be the southern states dragging the US average up, right?
Jonathan Schofield
@jackofalltrades @CelloMomOnCars 215/3 = 72 ish, so am laughing in *UK abject failure* where we have 14.4 GW installed and a population only 20% smaller 🤦♂️
Jack of all trades
If it's any consolation, #solar at this latitude isn't so great anyway.
Germany currently has 75.17 GW of installed solar capacity.
In June solar generated 9376.9 GWh resulting in a capacity factor of 17%. Nice, right? Well, in January solar generated 917,5 GWh resulting in capacity factor of 1.7%.
The idea that solar can meet the energy needs of Germany is quite ill-informed IMHO.
CelloMom On Cars
The panic about the economic stagnation is from the energy price shock (Russian gas disappeared) and the slow-down in China. But:
"These outside shocks have exposed cracks in Germany’s foundation that were ignored during years of success, including lagging use of digital technology in government and business and a lengthy process to get badly needed renewable energy projects approved."
https://apnews.com/article/germany-economy-energy-crisis-russia-8a00eebbfab3f20c5c66b1cd85ae84ed
Jack of all trades
@CelloMomOnCars One can only laugh at this point when reading passages like these:
"The government wants to have 215 GW of solar installed in Germany by 2030, more than tripling existing capacity in seven years."
Why laugh? Because 215 GW of #solar with 10% capacity factor (because it's Germany, not California) will roughly replace 20GW of #nuclear power that they retired since 2011. So many years lost...
Jonathan Schofield
@jackofalltrades @CelloMomOnCars according to my maths and some digging, US energy consumption per capita is 1.76x that of Germany and 3.8x that of the UK.
US:
energy demand: 100.41 quadrillion Btu (2022)
population: 333 million
Germany:
energy demand: 14.29 qn Btu (2021)
population: 83 million
UK:
energy demand: 5.32 qn Btu (2021)
population: 67 million
Jack of all trades
My numbers are slightly different, but the general conclusion is correct.
2021 data for energy consumption:
USA: 88.52 qn Btu (25,945 TWh)
Germany: 12.1 qn Btu (3,549 TWh)
UK: 6.82 qn Btu (1,999 TWh)
Source: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-energy-cons?tab=chart&time=2021&country=GBR~DEU~USA
I can see that 100.41 qn Btu number listed on the EIA site: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/ though.
Would be nice to know the reason for the discrepancy.
Jack of all trades
To again compare that with the US...
I dug the numbers for 2022 from EIA. US had 110.1 GW of solar and 140.9 GW of wind for a total 251 GW system.
Wind+solar generated 44,427 GWh in August (capacity factor 23.8%) and 64,523 GWh in April (capacity factor 35.7%). Both top and bottom bounds were decided by the wind output, as it generates more than twice the energy than solar.
Overall, the US gets double returns on their solar+wind investment compared to Germany or UK.
Jack of all trades
@CelloMomOnCars @urlyman Indeed, it makes more sense when #solar and #wind are combined. However, the variability is still quite big.
Based on 2022 data, in Germany there was 68.5 GW of solar, 58.1 GW of onshore wind and 8.2 GW offshore wind.
If we treat this as a combined 134.8 GW system, we are going to get a spread of generation between 12,353 GWh in August (capacity factor 12.3%) and 23,105 GWh in February (capacity factor 25.5%).
BTW in Germany electricity demand is higher in the winter.
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