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> But also, aren't they huge on solar even though they get a fraction of the sun that the USA does? They've put a ton of money into solar and wind, but these a
by travisp 10y ago
> But also, aren't they huge on solar even though they get a fraction of the sun that the USA does?
They've put a ton of money into solar and wind, but these are extremely variable and there are days of the year that solar and wind produce practically 0% of Germany's energy, and usage keeps growing.
- cygx 10y agothese are extremely variable and there are days of the year that solar and wind produce practically 0% of Germany's energy Note that it tends to be more windy when it's less sunny, so the monthly variability of solar and wind energy production combined yields a factor of less than two. You're right than on a daily basis, there likely will be issues, but I don't know the statistics off-hand (besides the news stories that electricity tariffs can go negative on sunny days).
- travisp 10y agoThis was 2014, so it may be different in 2015, but is a reasonable benchmark: https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/downloads-englisch/pdf-files-englisch/data-nivc-/electricity-production-from-solar-and-wind-in-germany-2014.pdf https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/en/downloads-englisch/pdf-file... You can see that during 2014 the minimal combined solar and wind production for a day was just 0.022 TWh (just 4% of maximum combined wind and solar). While generally it was around 0.2TWh, the risk of dropping to almost no production means that Germany still can't really rely on wind and solar and still has to significantly rely on coal and gas (especially gas, since it is most flexible).