Posted on 02/19/2021 1:37:32 PM PST by EBH
In 2000 when the program was first launched, 6.6 percent of Germany’s electricity came from renewable sources such as solar and wind. In 2019, almost two decades later, the share reached 41.1 percent. That’s where the good news end. In 2000, Germany had an installed capacity of 121 gigawatts with 577 terawatt-hours generated, which is 54 percent as much as it theoretically could have done (that is, 54 percent was its capacity factor). But in 2019, the country only produced a meager 5 percent more (607 TWh).
During the twenty-year period, the Germans also paid a hefty price for the program. For example, the average cost of electricity for German households has doubled since 2000. By 2019, households had to pay 34 U.S. cents per kilowatt-hour, compared to 22 cents per kilowatt-hour in France and 13 cents in the United States, according to data from IEEE Spectrum.
That’s not all. This year, the coldest weather in a decade arrives in western Europe. Bitter cold and snow sweep across western Europe including Germany, Great Britain, and France. Germany faces a sober reality as millions of its solar panels are blanketed in snow and ice and breathless. The freezing weather has rendered its 30,000 wind turbines to idleness. It is not just the wind turbines. Solar panels covered with snow are also rendered useless.
For many years, Germany has been held up as the world’s wind and solar capital. But now, the deadly winter is putting a strain on Germany’s Energiewende program and the country has to be rescued by, you guessed it, “dirty” fossil fuels.
So looking back two decades, how well did Germany do? To measure how successful the Energiewende program has been toward the ultimate goal of decarbonization. In the December 2020 article titled, “Energiewende, 20 Years Later,”
(Excerpt) Read more at techstartups.com ...
Schadenfreude!
“Let’s drink some beer and eat some schnitzel and wear short leather pants and forget about electricity!”
OK. So the solar panels are covered with snow because they’ve got the flat side up.
What if they just turned the solar panels 90 degrees and had the skinny part of the panel facing up?
Where’s my Nobel Prize?
If only they lived in Southern California...
God has a great sense of humor, doesn’t He?
umm...
There should be a rule that when windmills stop turning, the greenies have goout and turn the blades by hand.
Solar energy. Your fair-weather friend.
I know.
I amaze myself sometimes.
How about 40-45 degrees? That’s about where they are now at a northerly latitude.
See, the snow would just drop by.
It wouldn’t land on the solar panel.
Well, a little bit would land but not enough to cause a problem or anything.
Well, duh...heating elements would keep the solar cells snow-free. German engineering ain’t so smart, is it?
‘’For many years, Germany has been held up as the world’s wind and solar capital.’’
But at what cost ... as the article says it is high ... so high that as many as 1.5 million households can not afford electricity and go without. They shut down their nuke plants when Japan had their huge accident and the cost shot up. This because of so few coal plants operable.
This is a brilliant, powerful, highly educated,sophisticated, cultured country of the highest order. Unfortunately they have a self-destructive streak...invasion of the Soviet Union, declaring war on the US, electing Merkel, open borders, closing all nuclear power etc. These are not small matters on the grand scale of things.
The price of electricity also drives up costs of nearly everything. Water, a high percentage of your water Bill is the cost of pumping.
Green Energy Fail - bump for later....
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