Germany’s ‘Green’ Energy Failure: Germany turns back to ‘dirty’ coal and natural gas as millions of its solar panels are blanketed in snow and ice

Tech Startups ^ | 2/11/2021 | Nickie Louise

[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,”

[alloysteel]

Smoke from the fires throughout California would have rendered most of the solar panels ineffectual. Besides, the grids leading from the solar farms and the windmill farms would have been burned up and the supply of energy cut off anyway.

Hell has frozen over. The windmills and solar panels cannot work.

[Varsity Flight]

Climate Same

Amen.