Spectre of Blackouts Loom as Cold Weather Threatens German Energy Savings Plan

breitbart.com ^ | 12/15/2022 | Peter Caddle

[rktman]

The spectre of future energy blackouts is once again looming in Germany, with the country’s plan to cut consumption falling significantly short amid cold winter weather.

A cold snap that has hit the north of Europe is now seriously threatening Germany’s energy security, with the country now reportedly falling far short of hitting gas savings targets of 20 per cent needed to avoid rolling blackouts.

While many officials across the country had warned that there is a very real threat that Germany could be facing serious energy shortages over the next few months, bigwigs close to the government have repeatedly dismissed these concerns, expressing confidence that the country’s plans to cut energy usage will be enough to see it through the winter.

However, such confidence now appears to have been shaken significantly by recent events, with public-service broadcaster ZDF reporting that Klaus Müller, the head of Germany’s Federal Network Agency energy watchdog, has once again publicly begged the public to use less gas.

While attempting to reassure Germans that the country remains “very, very far away from a gas shortage”, Müller admitted that the country was now burning far more gas than initially expected for this time of year, revealing that the country had actually managed to chew through one percent of its entire gas reserve on Monday alone.

“That should now remain an outlier,” he said, arguing that high consumption should not be allowed to continue in January and February.

[rktman]

Quick! More EVs STAT! Oh................. Only 99% of the reserve left. "... high consumption should not be allowed to continue in January and February." Watch out Black Forest. You got a target on your back.

[G Larry]

Our Solar power install is next week.

It has NOTHING to do with economics or climate!

It is about independence!!!!

[rktman]

Roger that. Best of luck with it.

[kiryandil]

It’s a shame about the calm winds in Europe...

[ClearCase_guy]

A spectre is haunting Europe — the spectre of Communism.
— The Communist Manifesto

[Tell It Right]

Our Solar power install is next week. It has NOTHING to do with economics or climate! It is about independence!!!!

Same here. I strongly suggest you don't focus just on solar. There are many other energy improvements we did to our house that have brought a better return than our adding solar did. Things like more insulation and sealing cracks. We also replaced our A/C and natural gas furnace with a variable speed heat pump. And we replaced our natural gas water heater with a hybrid water heater.

I also strongly suggest you don't put power onto the grid. I have inverters that let me choose to put no power onto the grid. If you put power onto the grid you automatically put yourself under some new regulations, perhaps a lot of regulations depending on the state you live in.

[rktman]

“Climmunists”!

[V_TWIN]

As long as you understand it will require maintenance just like anything else.

The tree hugger across the street refuses to spend $7k for repairs on his ....and now it is totally inoperable.

I guess he thought it would be a one time expenditure and the system would last forever.......typical lib. SMH

[G Larry]

Your approach does provide more independence, but at a much higher cost.

Can't go "off grid" or our property would be condemned.

(Because we have access to the public utility and don't use it.)(Amazing control, eh?)

So, having both Utility and Solar power would require separate Panel and wiring...

[Flick Lives]

A cold snap that has hit the north of Europe..

—

AKA, Winter

[rktman]

WOW! Who saw that coming? ❄️☃️

[Not_Who_U_Think]

“arguing that high consumption should not be allowed to continue in January and February.”

---

Ah, there’s the old authoritative Germany I remember.

[Tell It Right]

Are you sure? We may be talking about the choice for inverter. I have a Sol-Ark 12kW Indoor inverter (a bit pricey, and after my upgrade last year I have 2 of them working in a stack as one inverter). It has the option that a lot of solar users call "no output" or "zero report".

Here's what it does with incoming solar power:
1. provide power to the house (the Load), if there's more power,
2. charge the battery stack, if the stack is 100% charged, then
3. do nothing with the excess power. Don't put power onto the grid under any circumstances. That excess power is simply lost.

Now with all of that, I constantly pull 100W from the grid so that I'm never "off grid". I always have something drawing over 300W anyway (i.e. my electric clocks and my appliances with clocks and my cable modem). So as far as my utility is concerned, I'm never off grid. It's just on most days I pull only 2.4kWh total for the day (the 100W for 24 hours). So my utility sees me as someone who lives like a hermit on most days, then gets a bit power hungry on other days (of course, those are the days I don't have solar power for a while and have to get my power from the grid).

[aMorePerfectUnion]

"I'll just close my window and turn on my [expensive] heating."
- Berlin_freezer

[Ellendra]

expressing confidence that the country’s plans to cut energy usage will be enough to see it through the winter.

I'm on a couple of frugal-living discussion groups. Starting around March, there were posts by people in Europe, mostly Germany, asking for ways to prepare food without a stove, because they could no longer afford the cost of energy to run it with.

I dare those "confident" officials to stand in the kitchen of a family that can't afford to boil water, and tell me again how cutting energy usage is enough.

[Tell It Right]

I should add, to clarify how to work the "not off grid" feature, here's how my inverters provide me power (satisfy the Load my house needs):

1. draw the first 120W from the grid, if I need more than that,
2. get what I need from solar, if I need more than that,
3. get what I need from battery storage. If I need more than that (either because my battery charge is below 30% or my load is more than the 18kW my inverters can convert DC to AC at any point in time),
4. get all else I need from the grid.

So as far as my utility goes, I'm never "off-grid". I'm always drawing at least a trickle of power from them.

Do you remember the dial-up internet days, when people would start a large file download ("large" in those days LOL), walk away from their computer, and their internet service would automatically hang-up because of no response? Do you remember some of us getting around that by having an automatic ping program to every now and then ping a server so that the internet service counts you as still working online? That's what the first 120W (I said 100W earlier, I forgot I recently increased it) does. It's like a constant "ping" to tell the power company I'm still here and I'm still a customer. But for all practical purposes, it's a drop in the bucket on my power bill (about $9 in a month's time with my recent rate, and that's if I had enough solar to be off-grid anyway without the ping).

[G Larry]

Ah...Our storage battery is a Tesla Power Wall w the integrated inverter.

[Tell It Right]

"Ah...Our storage battery is a Tesla Power Wall w the integrated inverter."

I'm sorry. Is it too late to refund it? TESLA stands for Too Expesive Still Liberals Adore. It's not meant for independent minded folks. It's meant to make you feel better helping make the world a better place by putting power onto the grid.

[Navy Patriot]

Ah, there’s the old authoritative Germany I remember.

I want to say I did Nazi that coming, however, I did.

[Navy Patriot]

Spectre of Blackouts Loom as Cold Weather Threatens German Energy Savings Plan

Germans could try stealing natural gas from Russia via Ukraine or Nordstream and, ... , oh wait, they already did...