The UNEP publication Climate Action reports that Germany set a new clean energy national record on July 25 (a Saturday) by meeting 78 percent of the day’s electricity demand with renewable sources, according to energy analysts.
German energy expert Craig Morris found that a stormy day across northern Europe combined with sunny conditions in southern Germany resulted in record generation. Renewables produced a total of 47.9 GW of power with wind and solar energy producing 40.65 GW, biomass making up 4.85 GW and hydropower contributing 2.4 GW. The record occurred at a time when peak energy demand was 61.1 GW on Saturday afternoon.
Initial figures from Germany energy policy firm Agora Energiewende indicate that renewables made up 79 per cent of domestic power consumption on July 25.
These are of course relatively short term performance figures. Looking at the longer term, renewables covered 27.8 per cent of Germany’s power consumption last year, up from 6.2 per cent in 2000.
Germany’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions fell for the first time in three years in 2014, a 4.3 per cent year-over-year drop. According Agora Energiewende, GHG emissions in Germany are currently at their lowest level since 1990.
Germany’s Energiewende renewable energy policy requires the phasing out of nuclear energy by 2022 and cutting greenhouse gases at least 80 per cent by 2050. The government is also aiming to at least double the share of renewables in the country’s energy mix by 2035.
Too much of a good thing?
Unfortunately, it seems that Germany’s ballooning supply from renewables has also produced some inconvenience. The magazine Renewable Energy World reported in a story July 8 that the country is producing so much electricity from wind and solar that it’s overflowing into the grids of some of its neighbors and increasing the threat of grid failures there.
The magazine reports that Poland and the Czech Republic are spending US$180 million on equipment to protect their systems from German power surges, while Austria is curbing some cross-border trading. It turns out that German investment in renewable energy over the past decade has outpaced that in the power lines needed to move it across the country, so that the power loops through Poland and the Czech Republic. On a windy day, the magazine says, the overflow to the east can exceed the output from four atomic reactors.
Plans are to upgrade the grid to accommodate the growing supply from renewables.
Original story at http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/news/2015/07/german-wind-and-solar-power-overwhelming-neighbor-country-s-grids.html.