Coal replaces wind as most important energy source in Germany in H1

[grlass]

You can see a great map of how terrible Germany's grid is compared to say France with this map [1].

Compared to France, which is so green due to high levels of nuclear, Germany has banned the building, and is compelling the decommissioning of all nuclear plants, with the last ones expected to be shut down in the next couple of years [2].

[1] https://www.electricitymap.org/?lang=en [2] https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/history-behind-ge...

[fredsted]

It's really sad that Germany is shutting down and replacing nuclear with coal due to Fukushima.

[bayesian_horse]

France is massively subsidizing nuclear power, and just like everybody else, has no real long term solution for the nuclear waste. Also, if there is a major accident, it is not the power companies or their investors that will pay the cost, it is the tax payers and the rest of society. Same with decommissioning the nuclear plants, for which the companies are supposed to hold back some funds, but they just undercalculate that, go bankrupt and the taxpayer pays up.

[curiousgal]

The issue is that Germany is actively sabotaging the adoption of nuclear power.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/germany-four-others-...

[mogadsheu]

Having spent >15 years in and around energy, I prefer to setter clear of value judgments on energy sources.

Nuclear power is green for the duration of our lifetimes, at the cost of a near eternity of fallout.

[hannob]

Just some context so people understand this better: This is not an indication of some "back to coal" trend.

Wind has overtaken coal for the first time last year. Now for a few months the situation is back to coal as the most important source. These things obviously fluctuate and thus it's not a linear trend, but the overall trend is still that renewables are growing and coal is in decline.

(And to be sure I'm not misunderstood: That doesn't change the fact that the high coal use in Germany is a big problem and the wind buildout is far too slow.)

[pantalaimon]

There is also the problem that regulation for building wind turbines got much stricter. In a lot of places where wind turbines were previously built, it is no longer permitted to do so.

Those turbines usually get replaced after 20 years when subsidies run out and it's no longer economical to operate them. The new regulations will lead to a net negative in wind installations in the upcoming years.

[Bombthecat]

No, the overall trend is : wind farms will build back (destroyed) and it is harder to build new ones, thanks to new laws.

[agent327]

We regularly get excited stories about how wind is now the most important energy source in Germany, but it is important that people realize moments like that are exceptions to the rule. In general, most German energy comes from the worst polluting energy source we have: coal.

[consp]

This includes massive amounts of lignite which is the worst of worst.

[Tepix]

We would have been a lot further down the road to renewable energy if the current government had not stopped the wind industry in its tracks (due to corruption).

[dougmwne]

Given how much I've heard about Germany's solar investments and seen the panels on roofs around the country, it's a bit of a reality check that solar only accounts for only about 9% of their energy mix. It makes me wonder if it's measured properly since some would get used at the point of generation and not go into the grid. It also makes me wonder if the tech has been generally oversold in the press vs. its potential.

[Semaphor]

From what I’ve been reading on German communities, the vast majority of private solar panels seem to be used directly and not sent to the grid. No idea if there are official stats about this.

edit: Wrote this slightly wrong. So what I’m usually reading is that they are mostly used privately, and only the leftover energy gets sent to the grid.

[Audiophilip]

Here's an animation visualizing the reach of the air pollution caused by coal plants across Europe: https://twitter.com/EurBeyondCoal/status/1064771743783497729

[rmoriz]

This was driven by specific commercial interest, as a new big coal plant was turned into service last year and the rise of the Greens and public protests made them hurry to burn coal as fast as possible.

A public court declared the plant (Datteln 4) as beeing built illegally so there are huge doubts that it will ever return the construction costs.

Public opinion towards brown coal mining is at the lowest, hence everyone tries to mine and burn as much as possible until legislation will prohibit further exploitation.

[shoto_io]

German here. In hindsight it was very stupid to go out of nuclear in a panic attack just to burn coal and buy nuclear from France instead. A big fail.

[namdnay]

The irony is that the German Greens are one of the reasons Germany burns so much coal, instead of using nuclear like France :(

[imtringued]

Germany gives priority to renewables and 2020 needed less electricity which meant coal wasn't needed. Strangely enough people will still interpret their pet theories like Germany building more coal or the wind being less reliable it something as basic as the covid lockdown slowing down economic activity.

[ElKrist]

The article also mentions a decline in energy production from wind, in absolute terms:

"In contrast, renewables generated 114 billion kWh of the total, which represents an 11.7% drop on an annual basis and this was largely due to the decline in wind power."

This part is completely unrelated to covid

[kabanossen]

So what was H1 for 2019? Pretty obvious that the numbers for 2020 would be lower because of Corona. More interesting to compare 2021 with 2019.

[imtringued]

https://energy-charts.info/charts/renewable_share/chart.htm?...

The comparison is slightly unfair though because 2019 has ended but 2021 hasn't.

[G3rn0ti]

Have there been any technological advances regarding the wind and solar's capability of providing a base load? While Germany has been subsidizing wind and solar aggressively and even pushed back on the construction of coal plants in some areas, AFAIK nobody got a solution to tackle the inherent unreliability of green energy. The German government ought to have a plan for this, I hope?

[hannob]

I mean there's a lot to say about failures of German energy politics, but this isn't necessarily one of them.

One of the biggest developments in energy in the past years is that Germany started a hydrogen strategy. A major buildout of hydrogen electrolyseurs is planned in the upcoming decade (and given the support for this from basically all sides I expect this to be extended). In the end we'll likely have hydrogen gas plants that run in times where renewables are scarce.

Also there are projects to adapt industry electricity demand to production. The aluminium company Trimet, which is one of the largest electricity users in Germany, is already doing this.

[anonuser123456]

Grid scale batteries are set to become a thing in the next 5-7 years. A lot of different technologies are in the pilot plant phase, and most of them have a pathway to scalability.

[nicoburns]

Yes, continual improvement in battery technology. They aren't here yet, but solid state lithium-ion batteries are widely considered likely to be commercially available in the next few years.

[amai]

This wouldn‘t happen if Germany had a CO2 tax.

[ghego1]

Are falling back to 1921?