The German renewable energy bubble has collapsed since the government rolled back subsidies for a variety of green energy sources such as solar and biogas in 2014. Especially for solar.
German alarmist website klimaretter.de here reports that solar energy installations have reached a new 8-year low. According to the BDI German Federal Power Agency, in February this year only 100 megawatts of capacity were installed. This is 11% less than what was installed a year earlier, and much less than during the heydays earlier in the decade.
In 2014 the German government reformed its EEG energy feed-in act with the aim of limiting the annual amount of added solar capacity coming online to between 2400 to 2600 megawatts. Last year not even 1900 megawatts were added, klimaretter writes.
As the solar industry collapses in Germany, it is however faring much better worldwide, with USA and China leading the way in adding capacity. Experts expect between 53,000 and 57,000 megawatts of solar capacity to be added globally this year.
Wind turbines losing screws
Meanwhile a wind turbine was temporarily shut down when nearby residents heard loud, clunking noises for days and then found several 4-inch, quarter-pound stray bolts on the ground in western Germany near the border to France (see photo at link that follows.
According to the online volksfreund.de site, a repair crew was dispatched to repair the problem. Apparently there was “damage to the brake system that serves to arrest the rotor blades”. One of the screws fell inside the blade and caused the racket.
The local environment ministry reports that the problem has been solved and there is no longer any danger to residents.
Good thing no one was near when the damn bolts fell out!
“problem has been solved…” rrriiight!!!
Thanks for the warning! These absurd and brutal bird & bat killing monsters seem to be more dangerous for us ground earthlings than formerly known…
Never go to close to one! Though in some regions of Germany, this can’t be avoided so easily any more… 🙁
BTW Pierre: Please translate this great satire for the English-speaking blogosphere:
http://www.kaltesonne.de/news5-5/
That excellent text of Prof. Ganteför is really very funny and more than fitting! The notorious anti-CO2 zealot Schnellnhuber as the likewise notorious fundamentalist preacher Savonarola! And not to speak of their real physical similarity… LOL !!! 🙂
The current Government in german “big coalition” is centrist and has absolutely no interest in the environment. (you would come to a completely different impression, when you just read this blog).
Sigmar Gabriel, the leader of the SPD and vice-chancellor is minister for economics and energy and has not done anything for alterantive power since he is in office.
It is rather obvious, that old coal plants need to pay a fee nor better get switched of immediately. That is what the scientists say:
http://www.handelsblatt.com/politik/deutschland/diw-zur-energiewende-warum-gabriels-kohle-abgabe-sinn-macht/11665920.html
If Gabriel keeps doing nothing or allows the CSU (a special branch of political party in the state of Bavaria) to run amok in the energy sector, he will lead the SPD to a drop below 20% votes.
(many SPD voters are not paid by the coal lobby, so plenty of them support environmental policies)
http://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2015-04/markus-soeder-bayern-stromstrassen-klage
sod 22. April 2015 at 22:42 | Permalink | Reply
“Sigmar Gabriel, the leader of the SPD and vice-chancellor is minister for economics and energy and has not done anything for alterantive power since he is in office.”
sod, German consumers are FORCED to fork over 24bn EUR a year and that’s how thankful you are for the loot? Please leave the country, maybe there’s a different people even more willing to be looted by solar+wind leeches.
Annual subsidy has never been higher than now.
If the incapable idiot Gabriel would want to do NOTHING for the alternative to power he would reduce the subsidies to ZERO. NOW. ZERO is NOTHING. 24 billion Euro a year is NOT.
Your greed really knows no bounds. Are you the descendant of a dynasty of robber barons?
Close the coal fired so that the people can rely on the ZERO % reliability of wind. (It was 0% you came up with for reliability, wasn’t it, sob?)
That’s a good way to help the economy. NOT.
If people really cared about the environment they WOULDN’T want to close down coal fired power stations.
Coal fired and gas are the only power supplies that add more life-giving CO2 to the atmosphere… except, of course the manufacture of USELESS , zero reliablity (your number, sob) waste of time and money, environmentally destructive, wind turbines
“has not done anything for alterantive power since he is in office.”
Seems like Mr. Gabriel is on the right track, then.
What should happen is the removal of all subsidies and feed-in/priority rules.
Go to a “contract to deliver” system
The supply companies say how much they can deliver at a high level of reliability to meet base load.
Coal and gas.. have proven delivery for many many years..
Wind .. as you have said, cannot guarantee to deliver one single kw of electricity. so would get zero contract.. as it deserves.
…to understand the amount of the loot that the solar+wind robber barons have accumulated, it helps to remember that only one third of electricity must be purchased by consumers for extortionate tariffs of 26 Eurocents a kWh. The other two thirds of the loot are hidden in the inflated electricity prices that the public sector pays, who consumes another third of the electricity total, and the third third is consumed by businessesm.
So two thirds of the 24 billion Euros come together by increased taxation and by increased product prices – in the end all paid by the population.
Even for a hard leftist like sod (as he is farther left than the social democrat government, as he admits) this *SHOULD* be unsatisfactory, as the price inflation caused by the plunder he promotes hits “the poor” hardest. At least I would expect such a person to *pretend* concern about it.
What on Earth would scientists know about coal companies and fees they, or any company, for that matter, should be paying. (to whom??) Go back to Science of Doom! I grow weary of your constant, smart-assed illogic that you keep spamming us with.
Sorry…comment was directed to sod.