Germany's solar power the equivalent of 20 nukes

Solar power production in Germany has reached a milestone: 22 gigawatts per hour:

German solar power plants produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity per hour - equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity - through the midday hours on Friday and Saturday, the head of a renewable energy think tank said.

After the Fukushima disaster Angela Merkel shocked her own party by charting a course to phase out nuclear power in Germany.  That decision has accelerated the production and adoption of solar:

Norbert Allnoch, director of the Institute of the Renewable Energy Industry (IWR) in Muenster, said the 22 gigawatts of solar power per hour fed into the national grid on Saturday met nearly 50 percent of the nation's midday electricity needs.

"Never before anywhere has a country produced as much photovoltaic electricity," Allnoch told Reuters. "Germany came close to the 20 gigawatt (GW) mark a few times in recent weeks. But this was the first time we made it over."

The record-breaking amount of solar power shows one of the world's leading industrial nations was able to meet a third of its electricity needs on a work day, Friday, and nearly half on Saturday when factories and offices were closed.

This amazing production record didn't just happen on its own; it required government support in the form of legislation and subsidies:

Government-mandated support for renewables has helped Germany became a world leader in renewable energy and the country gets about 20 percent of its overall annual electricity from those sources.

Germany has nearly as much installed solar power generation capacity as the rest of the world combined and gets about four percent of its overall annual electricity needs from the sun alone. It aims to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.

Tomorrow is a national holiday in German (Pentecost) and yet another green objective could be achieved: for a few hours 100% of Germany's electriciy needs will be covered by renewable energy:

An Pfingstmontag könnte ein lang gehegter Traum der Ökostromer in Erfüllung gehen: Einen Tag lang wird vielleicht zum ersten Mal der gesamten deutschen Strombedarf fast ausschließlich mit Solar- und Windkraftanlagen gedeckt werden können – zumindest ein paar Stunden lang. 100 Prozent Ökostrom im Netz – hat die Energiewende schon funktioniert?

(On Pentecost Monday the dream of the renewable energy advocates could become a reality: for the first time the entire electricity needs for an entire day could be met almost entirely through solar and wind power installations - at least for a few hours.  100% renewable energy in the grid - does this mean the great energy shift is working?)

And what is America's response to this achievement?  Drill, baby, drill!

Cross-posted at DailyKos.

Comments

[michijo]

America isn't responding to Germany's solar power through drilling for oil. The USA's power is based on it's military industrial complex. The USA has the fiat currency for purchasing oil. Every government in the world has to use American dollars when buying oil. Our military is like Vatican City: it's a separate state within the USA. We need oil for our tanks, helicopters, fighter jets, and weapons of war. Germany doesnt have the same miltary: in fact Germany relies heavily on the American military, and often they profit in Germany, like in the destruction of Yugoslavia, an aim that the USA and NATO helped to achieve. Germany merely armed the croatian fascists with some old guns and uniforms from the former Eastern Germany. Then our supposedly good Democratic leader Clinton bombed the Serbs with depleted uranium, thus causing an environmental catastrophe. Later Canadian oil giant Banker's petroleum was able to drill in Albania, and caused yet another environmental catastrophe by doing an illegal oil drilling technique that caused a seismic reaction. The list of horrors goes on, while on the surface, they can pretend to be "green".

[michijo]

I am assured that Europeans are hypocrites. Their "green" ethics only apply to themselves. Chemicals produced in pharmacies in Switzerland that are banned from use in Europe are sold to the USA, which has lighter regulations.

[michijo]

Then joyously all kinds of organs harvested in former Yugoslavia make their way back into good ol' western Europe. Can you see how the Europeans actually want us in the USA to drill for oil? They need us to be "American", to get home mortgages, to buy big cars, so that Deutsche Bank can profiteer. You yourself pointed it out: they need us to die, they are betting on our life insurance policies.

[michijo]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvqNpsg9RxU&feature=related

[michijo]

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/02/20/solardammerung-the-twilight-of-germanys-green-energy-subsidies/

[michijo]

Why would Germany use Solar power, having only little sunlight year round? Wouldn't wind energy or even water energy be better? Having attempted to run a solar unit in my apartment in Maine, I found it extremely difficult to charge batteries doing the winter. I can see why it would be a waste of money in Germany. Most green innovations come with some catch 22, like Green buildings. You know how they make those green buildings now. Watch the documentary "The Greenest Building". You can see the scam behind actually tearing down old buildings, which in itself has huge environmental impact.

[koogleschreiber]

Michijo, we have an energy mix already. I am glad we are going to reduce nuclear energy to zero. To run a nuclear powerplant is only profitable because they don't have to be insured against worst case scenarios. The reason for this exception is very simple: Insurances against nuclear catastrophies don't exist, the premium would be so ludicrously high any nuclear powerplant would be unprofitable.

Germany is on the way to become the lead nation in green energies. We have already begun to build solar facilities in Morocco. In the long term this will pay out like your investments in space projects. Your glittering price is Mars, maybe Io or Titan, whole new worlds to exploit. On that way, German expertise in solar energy also might be very helpful.

[michijo]

Ah, your solar energy is actually a new form of Colonialism, setting up solar installations in Morocco. Cant stop exploiting Africa and the developing world eh? I guess I cant complain: the owner of my electricity in Maine is actually a company in Spain called Iberdrola, as in "Iber"ian Peninsula. Dont know how that sale came about...

[FJ]

Whoever runs this site has a guilty hair up their ass. From one German to another, here ya go, buddy.

http://www.realjewnews.com/

[Hattie]

David: I don't know why so many nutters end up on your comments! You seem to me to be a very reasonable and tolerant person yourself. Ah well.
Anyway, I love solar. But I live on the Big Island of Hawaii. We have solar hot water and solar electricity. Our monthly household energy bill is $.00
You would think we'd be going all solar here, but nein! The electric co. doesn't like it. They claim it's too hard to regulate the flow of electricity, but what they really means is that they are too cheap to put in storage batteries. So our neighborhood now has all the solar power their grid will carry.
What they want is to drill for geothermal energy (earthquakes! explosions! Asphyxiation!) or else install two big oil powered plants, one on either side of the Island. They love to think big, but it would be no trick at all for us to supply 100% of our energy needs here with solar, including electric cars.
But hey, what does common sense have to do with any of this? It's so much more fun to blame each other for the mess we've gotten ourselves into.

[Zyme]

Indeed there are strange guys hard at work here - I hope that does not take away from your motivation to let us know your thoughts :-)

I am not a fan of solar power btw - it may make sense close to the equator but not so far to the north due to Earths angle towards the sun up here.

Apart from that all the irregularities this causes in the energy grid have to be balance by fossil powered plants. So there is not that much of an ecological benefit as it may look like at first glance.

[David]

@Zyme,

Where's your national pride? Germany's solar achievements are impressive by anyone's standards.

[michijo]

Send satellites with solar panels close to the sun. Set up relay satellites all the way back to earth filled with batteries and figure out a way to transfer the electrical charge wirelessly.

[Zyme]

David,

the only thing impressive I can see with Germany's solar world is the breath-taking amount of public subvention going into it...

[Rashad]

I am really sure about the use of solar power exponentially in our village.