Germany has spent money on renewable energy, like wind and solar power, like few others in the world. So far the country has invested hundreds of billions. How’s the return on investment? Pretty lousy, especially this November.
The European Institute for Climate and Energy (EIKE) today has a story on how wind parks and solar panels are performing: Germany’s renewable energy in November! Only 7 % of the installed feed-in capacity was fed in.
When Germany exports some energy to France, the media hypes it up everywhere in the evening news…proof that Germany’s energy transition to renewable energy is paying off!
But that, it turns out, is a rare event. Ralf Schuster, for example, took the October data from the EEX in Leipzig and plotted the following chart, which depicts wind and solar feed-in, import from France, and export to France. I’m not going to get to much in the details here. The chart below shows that the exports (green shaded area) are rare and import from France (red shaded area) is the normal situation.
Schuster then took a look at how much solar and wind power was fed in last week from 9 November to 15 November, 2012. He found that of the 64,000 MW of installed wind + solar capacity in Germany, less than 5000 MW was fed in. That comes out to just over a whopping whole 7%!
Now imagine paying 100 employees and seeing only 7 of them working, and that for an entire week. It wouldn’t be long before you went bankrupt.
This kind of performance should be considered before any country, state or community allow itself to be duped into investing in green energy sources.
It’s not for nothing old societies back in history abandoned windmills. They weren’t effective back then, and they certainly are not efficient today.
Hat-tip to Winfried Klein Chairman of the IG-LAHN e.V. in Runkel, Germany Tel.: (+49) 6482 4994.
The difference between rhetoric and reality is so great that it defies reason to believe that those who push the “green” revolution of energy really think solar, wind is either economically justified or effective at any scale.
Presidents and coaches tell the nation and team that they are the best on the planet, believing that greatness is only achieved by those who believe they are great. Which is true. But greatness must be to begin with: you cannot make the ineffective effective with propaganda. The Stalinists worldwide learned this the hard way, but their Western cousins, the eco-green haven’t got the latest memo.
I would like to think that reason eventually prevails. Actually it does, but my experience in private industry, where reason is demonstrated on the bottom line of the ledger, shows me that complete disaster often precedes reason.
The green political stance is costing us much lost opportunity as well as financial difficulty. Before it is over, it will cost much, much more.
What a shame.
Our old Greens – the old K-Gruppen nomenclatura – are making a last desparate bid for power in the 2013 elections. That will be their last chance.
They don’t mention energy or the environment or Global Warming at all. They only talk about tax hikes on the rich and especially on industry, and sharing the European debt between all Eurozone nations.
So, they run an Obama 2.0 campaign. The complete disaster that they left behind by instating the renewables subsidies during their reign with the Social Democrats from 1998 to 2005 is not mentioned by them.
I think they will fail. Obama 2.0 was able to succeed by promising more freebies to the people who already got freebies. Their European debt sharing proposal would only work if the recipients of the aid – Greek and Spaniards etc – were allowed to vote in the German elections. That’s where their strategy falls on its face.
Another interesting comparison would have been the cost of the iported electricity versus the cost of the exported electricity.
Here in Ontario, Canada, wind power, when it produces at all, generally produces at times of the day when the energy is least required. This results in the grid operator having to sell the excess power to neighbouring jurisdictions, Quebec, Manitoba or the northern US States, at or below wholesale market price, often Ontario has to pay these jurisdictions to take the power. In other words, under the McGuinty Liberal government’s FIT rules not only are we obliged to buy any power produced by wind or solar, whether it is needed or not, we pay the producers 4 times as much for it as for any other source of conventional power, but we also lose money again when we pay oour neighbours to take it off our hands.
I am willing to bet that a similar situation pertains in Germany where its neighbours are already trying to protect themselves from the power surges of the German grid…
Thanks for the great articles,
In a not unrelated conversation I just had with my neighbour, who purchased a Nissan Leaf electric car about 18 months ago and needs to sell before the battery life is gone, the resale value right now is £10,300, a net loss of £18,000.
Can you do the math?
Not much better here in the UK. This is a live reading of the UK’s electricity power output. Yesterday the wind dropped to barely above zero of it’s full capacity:
http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/
Sorry to interrupt the ranting here, but why on earth are you searching the energy from wind parks in Germany at the EEX ? 95% of the renewable energies in Germany are sold via the EEG (‘Einspeisevergütung des Erneuerbare Energiengesetz = feed-in compensation of the renewable energy law), they normally don’t appear at the EEX at all ?
Leave alone that the EEX is only trading the energy which is not covered by OTC (=Over the counter), being the majority of the energy in Europe.
Where did you get this data ? But yes, the past couple of days have been almost without any wind here, and the sun is also not shining. So, for anybody who would like to start a serious rant against renewable, now is the perfect time to do it, that’s for sure …..
I’m sad to see that anti – renewable forces are using the same tactics in Germany as they did here in the US. Cherry -picking data (selective inclusion) to reach conclusions that support their dogma. And I’m glad to see that someone is smart enought to see through their deception!!
Thanks, Christian!
Renewable energy is a perfectly fine energy source for somebody who is content with its very high price tag and its inherently fluctuating nature.
What I reject is being forced to pay other people for their wind/solar electricity because it is not what I need.
I need a STABLE and CHEAP supply.
Please go ahead and buy yourself ALL the renewable energy sources you want but don’t expect me to pay for it.
It might make very good sense on a remote island with a lot of sun. Unfortunately, Germany is situated far in the North and is a very cloudy country.
Bruce your remark about cherry picking is a ridiculous example of the “pot calling the kettle black”. In my more than 60 years, I have never seen such a pack of deception, misrepresentations, and outright lies as spun by the wind industry. The wind industry cannot compete without tax subsidies, mandates, and market manipulations. It is a total failure.
Christian Wiesner
19. November 2012 at 23:04 | Permalink | Reply
“Sorry to interrupt the ranting here, but why on earth are you searching the energy from wind parks in Germany at the EEX ? 95% of the renewable energies in Germany are sold via the EEG (‘Einspeisevergütung des Erneuerbare Energiengesetz = feed-in compensation of the renewable energy law), they normally don’t appear at the EEX at all ?”
“But yes, the past couple of days have been almost without any wind here, and the sun is also not shining. So, for anybody who would like to start a serious rant against renewable, now is the perfect time to do it, that’s for sure …..”
So, Christian, you are saying that
a) the data is wrong
b) that indeed, solar and wind didn’t deliver much.
Make up your mind. Do you DISPUTE the finding that only 7% of nameplate capacity have been delivered or do you SUPPORT it?
For me it looks like you support it. FINE. Now PLEASE explain to all of us WHY we are forced to pay nearly the HIGHEST electricity price in the world for the most UNSTABLE supply.
Please, your argument.
Christian, I suppose you’re German, so I think this explanation from the EEX can help you understand your mistake.
http://www.regenerative-zukunft.de/grundlagen/energiewirtschaft
While wind, solar and other EEG-subsidized energy suppliers get the guaranteed price, their output does get traded at the EEX.
I guess I’m too late and Christian’s gone. But what we have witnessed here is an attack by a German Green who insinuates that skeptics use false data – yet cleverly conceals the fact that the renewable energy kWh’s ARE traded at the EEX, which I was able to find out in a minute with google. So obviously Christian must have known it as well – Christian, why did you lie to us? WHY?
Because you can’t win with the truth.
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