Socially Explosive …More Than 1 Million German Households Had Power Shut Off Over Past Three Years!

Note: Sticky post for one more day…
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The online Spiegel has an article that really drives home the energy hardship that German consumers are suffering, “due to the rising costs of electricity“, brought on by the country’s hasty rush into green energies.

Cratchit 1935

Hundreds of thousands of Germans struggling today without electricity. Image cropped from here.

It is not only Germany’s power companies who are bleeding to death financially, but so are many private citizens, who are unable to pay for their power. A shocking situation in one of the world’s most technically advanced nations.

According to the German flagship news magazine, citing the federal Bundesnetzagentur (German Network Agency), more than 350,000 households saw their power get switched off in 2014. Spiegel blames the “Energiewende” (transition to renewable energy), writing in its sub-title:

The social problems of the Energiewende are growing: Last year more households than ever saw their power get switched off. The reason is the rising price of electricity.”

Spiegel also provides the figures for the previous years, and they too are horrific. In 2013 close 345,000 households lost their power, and in 2012 it was about 320,000. Over the past three years it all totals to be a whopping 1.025 million households!

In a country of 82 million, the figures are socially explosive.

Threatened 6.3 million times

It’s a glaring paradox of the Energiewende: On the production side, power plants are losing billions of euros because they can no longer even get a modest price for their power, while on the consumer side more and more households are unable to afford the skyrocketing prices brought on by the mandatory infusion of expensive and unstable green energies into the German power grid. The once mighty German power grid now teeters on the brink of crumbling.

The situation threatens to get far worse. Spiegel writes that “far more households have problems with their electric bills. According to the Bundesnetzagentur power utilities threatened their customers with power cut-offs 6.3 million times.”

Spiegel writes that the price of electricity in Germany has doubled since 2002 in large part because of the renewable energy feed-in surcharge. Private households are the hardest hit; they have to pay some 45% more than the EU average (while German power producers get 30% less than the EU average)! The government-interfered market is grotesquely distorted.

Spiegel reports that even more costs are on the way for 2016 with the average household expected to pay on average 40 euros per year more.

 

73 responses to “Socially Explosive …More Than 1 Million German Households Had Power Shut Off Over Past Three Years!”

  1. Peter Azlac

    Of course this will not happen to the recent hundreds of thousands of migrants who will have their energy costs covered by the German State, including those whom have had their power cut off! That is not to say that the migrants should not be kept warm, rather it shows the difference (or is it indifference) in attitude of Merkel towards her own citizens.

  2. DICK R

    The ecolunatics will only be satisfied when we are all living in freezing damp huts on a diet of mineral water and raw carrots.

    1. David Appell

      We simply want you to pay for the damage done by your pollution.

      How is that in any way controversial???

      1. Michael

        Even for you, David, that’s imbecilic.

  3. GP Alexander

    The dream of a carbon-free Germany is coming true. A Utopia is well in hand.

    If I played such a role in this transformation, I would be moving to a gate-guarded community as so many of the unwashed masses may not appreciate that I saved them from unspeakable horrors and their inconvenience of having no electricity is a small price to pay for saving the planet and allowing me to drive my Tesla.

  4. Curious George

    The government should now provide a free electricity to Syrian refugees. They are used to a much warmer climate and have no money. Otherwise, the situation might become really explosive.

  5. R2Dtoo

    This is really sad. So much for the “green blob’s ” concern for the folks. It will take a massive failure at some point to get the electorates of western nations to see what is happening. Nation-by-nation only the crony capitalists are gaining, and they will never have to worry about spending on basic power.

    1. the kux

      You mean crony socialism cuz thats what they are not 100%, just because they want to keep all their ill gotten gains because many of them are getting filthy rich like Al Gore Jr from this cam

  6. BobW in NC

    I don’t get it…this is insane! Do the people and groups whose policies are causing this not care about the people they are affecting?

    And for what? China now leads the world in CO2 production at about 29%, according to one report and India is coming close behind! China is reported building one new coal-fired power plant every two days. And people in Germany can’t afford electricity because of stringent “Energiewende” policies.

    It just isn’t right. God help you!

    1. GP Alexander

      “Do the people and groups whose policies are causing this not care about the people they are affecting?”

      No. Because it is not and will not affect them personally.

    2. David Appell

      “Do the people and groups whose policies are causing this not care about the people they are affecting?”

      By burning fossil fuels, do you not care who you are affecting?

      1. David Appell

        Of course I’m enjoying the benefits. And as I already said, I’m willing to pay the costs for clean energy.

      2. Richard

        Do you mean the world greening, food index price at an eight year low and world poverty expected to be wiped out in the next forty years,

      3. David Appell

        Food quality is actually *declining*:

        “Higher CO2 tends to inhibit the ability of plants to make protein… And this explains why food quality seems to have been declining and will continue to decline as CO2 rises — because of this inhibition of nitrate conversion into protein…. “It’s going to be fairly universal that we’ll be struggling with trying to sustain food quality and it’s not just protein… it’s also micronutrients such as zinc and iron that suffer as well as protein.”-– University of California at Davis Professor Arnold J. Bloom, on Yale Climate Connections 10/7/14
        http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2014/10/crop-nutrition//2014

  7. David Johnson
    1. sod

      “Nd meanwhile in China ”

      did you read your article?

      “China’s economic slowdown and the government’s pledges to use more renewable and nuclear energy make some of the country’s existing plants and most or all of the 155 new ones unnecessary, according to interviews with officials and scholars, a review of public statistics and a report released Wednesday about the “coal power bubble” by Greenpeace East Asia. There are already too many plants, as shown by a steady decline in the plants’ average operating hours since 2013….”

      https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/11/16/china-approves-another-155-coal-fired-power-plants-this-year/

      Completely false incentives keep China building coal plants which will be an economic failure of a completely different magnitude.

      It is explained in more detail here:

      http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/12/world/asia/china-coal-power-energy-policy.html?_r=0

      Basically environmental groups have stopped a huge number of coal plants in Germany and saved billions to the big power companies.

      At the same time, a typical day in Chin looks like a day of heavy fog.

      http://grist.org/climate-energy/new-photos-of-chinas-awful-air-quality-make-us-nervous-about-coal-plant-plans/

      1. David Johnson

        It’s not my article and I did read it you cheeky sod

      2. nightspore

        Do you really think that China is on board this AGW silliness? Good grief. They’re happy to build wind turbines for the West, however, whatever it does to the local environment where they are manufactured. (It seems never to have occurred to you that their interests might not dovetail precisely with those of the West. [Of course, it seems not to have occurred to Western leaders either.])

        1. David Appell

          Of course China is “on board.” They have very smart scientists, and so they know why climate change is happening and how they are vulnerable to it.

          With a centrally planned economy, they will almost surely reach emissions goals before the west does.

          1. michael hart

            lol

            China’s emissions goals are to continue growing those emissions until they don’t need to grow them any more. They think this will happen in about a couple of decades or so.

            They have agreed these emissions goals with themselves and decided that is a good idea, but that Obama can say what he likes about any so called “agreement”.

            Mean while, they will continue expanding their territorial claims in the South China sea, with an eye to the potentially large fossil fuel resources to be mined there.

          2. DirkH

            David Appell 21. November 2015 at 2:23 AM | Permalink | Reply
            “Of course China is “on board.” They have very smart scientists, and so they know why climate change is happening and how they are vulnerable to it. ”

            The BRICS are laughing their collective asses off as the West commits economic suicide. Of course they go along. Never interrupt the enemy while he’s making a mistake.

      3. DirkH

        sod’s eternal trust in Greenpeace propaganda.

        Did I mention their late psychopathic dictator who sold dioxin laced olive oil as “organic”.
        http://www.torontofreepress.com/2001/0001a3.htm

        I thought so. They’re actually a shadow of their former self since he died in a car crash in his sports car.

      4. David Appell

        sod: Good comments and good links.

        You can expect to only be insulted here. Most readers don’t like hearing facts or rebuttals, and will abuse and insult you to try to intimidate you into leaving.

        Don’t let them.

        1. David Johnson

          Much like you two then

          1. David Appell

            But I haven’t left, have I?

  8. sod

    Yeah, it is just horrible to live in a country, where you can barely afford a light bulb at night.

    People in other countries are much better of, they have to sleep in their cars, but at least they have a got electricity at night!

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/homeless-mum-daughter-living-car-6817124

    and

    http://www.theprepperjournal.com/2015/05/12/being-prepared-to-live-in-your-car-successfully/

    1. Graeme No.3

      Both countries with leaders working to get rid of conventional generators and push up electricity bills.

      1. sod

        “Both countries with leaders working to get rid of conventional generators and push up electricity bills.”

        Yeah, and the electricity bill is the aspect, that is driving people to live in their cars. makes a lot of sense to me!

        1. GP Alexander

          sod, it simply astounds me how you and your Global Warming cultists can sleep at night knowing that your demonstrably failed global warming hypothesis is consigning this an future generations of our children to life-long poverty.

          You and those of your ilk have taken the benefits of over five generations of hard-working people that turned Europe into an industrial and prosperous powerhouse and are flittering it all away with policies that allow you, and only you, to live eco-guilt-free (in your own mind) in your PV clad house, while the rest of Europe and the developing nations crumble into poverty and unending misery.

          Your man-made global warming hoax is economic equivalent of having to destroy the village in order to save it. I cannot think of anything more repugnant and anti-human. A veritable tableaux of self-hatred to analyze such actions.

          I have read enough of your posts to see that while you are presenting the Dorian Gray of yourself and your fellow cultists, the true nature of your cult and it’s actions are well and truly seen in the picture of Dorian Gray.

          1. David Johnson

            Sums up him and his ilk to perfection

          2. David Appell

            #…demonstrably failed global warming hypothesis…”

            NASA: Oct 2015 warmest month in their record:

            http://davidappell.blogspot.com/2015/11/giss-posts-first-ever-global-anomaly.html

            2015 will be the warmest year in their record.

  9. Walter H. Schneider

    sod, you poor sod…, aside from missing the topic of this discussion thread, you have brought me to the point where I look forward to the outpourings of your heart. That is why now I look forward to discovering them every time there is a new posting at notrickszone.com.

    sod, you add spice to my golden years. You are so funny.

    1. sod

      “sod, you add spice to my golden years.”

      Thanks, i am always trying to help people out, whenever i can. Anything else i can do for you? do you need any help with your electricity bill?

      1. DirkH

        Yes. You and the other warmunists could help us a great deal by stopping to promote billion Dollar subsidy fraud.

        1. David Appell

          Subsidies for renewable energy are perfectly fair, as long as the pollution costs of fossil fuels are not price into their products.

          1. GP Alexander

            Welcome David, to the Trading Desk Economic Miracles showcase. You now join sod as honourary members.

            The Boys and I had a chuckle over this one. Your comparison is embarrassingly and patently false and, if stated around here, would have you relegated to doing nothing but coffee runs for the next two weeks in fear of damaging our good reputation.

            Subsidies NEVER have social costs factored in. They NEVER have economic cost of “now unavailable” cash factored in. They NEVER have cost of “less efficient is sufficient” factored in. They NEVER have cost of “pursuit of inappropriate technologies better spent on appropriate technologies” factored in. Etc Etc Etc.

            I did have to pause to ask myself how anyone could come to a conclusion of “fairness” when it comes to subsidies. The answer came quite quickly. Global Warming is the new Progressive Religion and so-called Progressives always equate “fairness” with “equality”. Just as you desire to bring renewables onto equal footing (and them some) with hydrocarbons. That would only be fair, would it not? Perhaps fair to the feelings of the quilt-ridden Global Warming cultist, who are embarrassed about the fact that they are doing well thanks to their parents and grandparents efforts.

            For the rest of the world which does not have the luxury of gazing at their navel and wondering if Gaia will love them more if they buy a Prius or VW diesel Jetta, these people want to do what your grandparents and parents did. Make a better life for themselves. This can only be achieved in the absence of “guilt of prosperity’-driven subsidies and economic policies Like normal people, I want to continue what my grandparents and parents did and prove more opportunities for my children in particular and the next generation in general.

            I cannot think of one in English, but I am quite sure there must be perfect word in German that describes someone who is willing and even celebrates that idea that they are building a world that leaves their children with less opportunity for prosperity and happiness.

            P.S. David, vis a vis the NASA temperature record, I have corrected it for you:

            “2015 will be the warmest year in their (altered) record”

          2. RT

            David

            No doubt 2015 can be the warmest year on instrumental record, as most, if not all, the years since 1998 can be if you twist the numbers as GISS did for 2104.

            Another way of putting it is that including uncertainties, temperature since 1998 has basically been constant.

            The only interesting point here, which you and other warmists desperately try to avoid with these warmest year stories, is that temperature has been basically constant or maybe very slightly increasing while the climate models have estimated a substantial rise.
            Even GISS’ dr Karl didn’t quite manage to fake the temperatures enough to match the models.

          3. DirkH

            “I cannot think of one in English, but I am quite sure there must be perfect word in German that describes someone who is willing and even celebrates that idea that they are building a world that leaves their children with less opportunity for prosperity and happiness.”

            Well, try Gutmensch. Has a lot to do with Kantian Gesinnungsethik.

          4. David Appell

            “Another way of putting it is that including uncertainties, temperature since 1998 has basically been constant.”

            Utterly false. Year-to-date, the GISS average is +0.08 C above the second highest month (last year).

            The uncertainty on the annual GISS number is 0.05, says Gavin Schmidt.

            This year rises a good bit above the error bar. And the long-term trend is definitely upward.

          5. David Appell

            Alexander wrote:
            “2015 will be the warmest year in their (altered) record”

            How would you correct for the known biases that GISS is adjusting for?

          6. David Appell

            “They NEVER have economic cost of “now unavailable” cash factored in. They NEVER have cost of “less efficient is sufficient” factored in.”

            The first doesn’t matter — the externalities exist regardless.

            The second factor misses the point — renewables are MUCH MORE EFFICIENT thanf fossil fuels, because they don’t change the climate for the next 100,000 years.

  10. Mervyn

    It’s enough to make one weep! To think that Germany is perhaps the most advanced western nation … yet it has power failures that one could expect in a third world country. Simply astonishing. What is really disgraceful is that there really should be no excuse for this sort of thing. But what to do when a country’s politicians have become punch-drunk on CO2/global warming bullshit!

    1. David Johnson

      Ah but according to SOD, they are good power failures 😉

    2. sod

      “yet it has power failures that one could expect in a third world country.”

      Germany has no power failures. It has the most stable grid of all countries of a similar size.

      https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/germanys-electricity-grid-stable-amid-energy-transition

      Please get your facts right!

  11. One Million German Households Have Had Power Shut Off – Spiegel | NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
  12. ColA
  13. Corinna Jones

    The Bundesnetzagentur is not a “flagship newsmagazine”. I am German, and have never heard of this publication. Please don’t lie to people if you are trying to present facts. Lies will backfire every time.
    Just stick to the truth, and you have a great story.

  14. MikeInAZ

    The environmental wackos are working on the same outcome here in America. My electricity rates are already going up because of all this extreme go green save mother earth garbage. We haven’t had our power turned off yet, but I expect it will happen down the road.

    1. David Appell

      Average electricity costs in the US simply aren’t increasing lately.

      Since Jan 2012, the real average price of US electricty is $0.125/kWh, with a variation of only about $0.002/kWh.

      These data are here:
      http://www.eia.gov/electricity/monthly/update/

      I’ve adjusted for inflation with the monthly US CPI.

      1. MikeInAZ

        Sorry, you have no clue. My power company just approved a 3.9% price increase this year and a large portion of it was for the going green garbage.

        1. David Appell

          Your individual power company doesn’t represent the national average.

          Sorry, but the data show the average cost of electricity in the US simply hasn’t changed in four years.

  15. gbrecke

    Hogwash! If you were a die hard leftist or an American Democrat, you’d know you can fix all of this with more subsidies.

  16. sod

    Well, if only we had invested in cheap coal plants. Like into the coal plant “Hamm D”, which was supposed to be running by now.

    But after some problems, we now have a situation in which RWE has offered the communities to buy their millions of shares of the 2+ billion euro project for 1 Euro each. So the about 1/4 part of the investment owned by the communities slightly lost value and is now worth 23 Euros in total.

    http://www.noz.de/lokales/osnabrueck/artikel/636118/stadtwerke-osnabruck-losen-sich-von-pannenkraftwerk

    1. David Appell

      Are you willing to pay for the pollution costs of coal plants?

      Or do you like making others pay for your dirty energy?

      1. DirkH

        Hit him, david, rah rah rah.

        1. sod

          Dirk you did not read the article and neither did David.

          An Investment of about one billion turned into an offer of exactly 23 euro (i should have that much in my pocket…).

          Anyone who is looking at the price of electricity and its effect on the poor and then points his fingers at renewables has not the slightest clue.

          The big companies have made billions of bad investments into coal and nuclear and have failed to keep the grid strong. If you believe them blaming renewables you will be happy to see the real father chistmas soon..

          1. David Appell

            Pollution from coal plants still costs lots of money. And it kills people, too.

            Dirk, of course, can only laugh.

  17. DirkH

    Solar power is getting ever cheaper. Oh, excuse me. That should have read, stocks of solar companies get ever cheaper. Drastically so.
    https://www.comdirect.de/inf/aktien/detail/uebersicht.html?ID_NOTATION=82072381
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-11-17/sunedison-collapsing-again

  18. David Appell

    I buy 100% green electricity from my power company, Portland General Electric.

    Over the last 12 months my cost has been 16.2 cents/kWh. On average I use 287 kWh/month.

    1. David Johnson

      Good for you I stand in awe of your awesomeness

      1. GP Alexander

        David Johnson

        I and the boys at the Trading Desk stand in awe of your awe of recognition of awesomeness.

        Let us meet meet with David Appell and form a drum circle around a campfire (solar-powered LED campfire.. check the Cabelas catalogue). We can summon the spirit of Gaia and perhaps even come into contact with our spirit totems.

        I do have a wood and leather drum given to me by a First Nations person that I could bring, but Gaia would not be pleased. Recycle plastic pails are in vogue now. The round ones, not the rectangular ones, they don’t have pleasant overtones and are too often used as something to sit on… very disrespectful to Gaia. Your butt must be in contact with the Earth to summer Her!

        1. David Appell

          “I do have a wood and leather drum given to me by a First Nations person that I could bring, but Gaia would not be pleased.”

          See how deniers decline to continue the discussion when they been shown facts that they are wrong?

          They pretend to play. They pretend this is all a joke. They bow out of the conversation to save face.

      2. GP Alexander

        You know David, actually we don’t need an LED campfire.

        You and I can just sit and bask in the glow of David A’s awesomeness. I am sure there is enough left basking glow left over to charge our cell phones and portable GPSs.

        The glow-basking will be followed up by us receiving a lecture on topics that would quite possibly include a section on why Ted Kaczynski was not all wrong.

      3. David Appell

        There’s nothing “awesome” about taking advantage of one’s power company’s offer of sustainable energy.

        It comes to only $0.008/kWh. It was an easy decision. An extra 5%.

    2. Wijnand

      100% green electricity 24/7 huh?
      Stop kidding yourself, there’s no such thing.

      1. DirkH

        Just count hydro as green.

      2. GP Alexander

        David Appell may be technically correct if you consider hydroelectricity to be ‘green’. I don’t know the extent of hydroelectric power production in Oregon, but in British Columbia, the vast majority of power production is based on hydroelectric, which is considered renewable due to hydrological cycle. At night, however, we do slow down reservoir outflow and import cheap natural gas derived electricity from our neighbouring province, Alberta. We get it as cheap if not cheaper than hydro, and it allows Alberta to save money by keeping the turbines going during low demand times. A win-win.

        It does cause offend the sensibilities of the Global Warming Cult here though, as the thought of their Teslas getting ‘dirty electricity’ forces them to seek the latest fainting couch.

        In reality Wijnand, you are right. There really is no such thing as 100% green electricity 24/7.

  19. the kux

    The Socialists in Germany believe that the people just can’t revolt because you’re already too dependent on the government it does too many things your day care your health care all those social programs this is why didn’t they don’t want the citizens to ever have guns because they know there would be a revolution against them because this is a lot of unnecessary pain that they have put on the people over there as they’re trying to do here in the United States. I’m just surprised the people there would put up with it the neighborhood is too dependent on the government already to stand up to it

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