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Pretty remarkable growth in PV! I do remember that Germany already had quite a bit of wind generators in the early 2000s, yet they seemed to have generated arou

by Maakuth 10y ago

Pretty remarkable growth in PV! I do remember that Germany already had quite a bit of wind generators in the early 2000s, yet they seemed to have generated around the same amount of energy as the PV capacity of today. And that's been mostly build during this decade. What's missing from this graph, however, are imports. I believe Germany imports quite a bit of nuclear power from France and coal power from Poland.

hannob 10y ago
> I believe Germany imports quite a bit of nuclear power from France and coal power from Poland. No, that is totally wrong. While in an open net and marked there are always small exports and imports going on, overall Germany is an electricity exporter and imports are very small overall and not very relevant.
- davrosthedalek 10y ago
  There is another form of import which is much harder to judge. Germany imports a lot of stuff from e.g. China, so in some sense the energy production should offset what energy is used in other countries for the imported stuff.
  - hannob 10y ago
    That is true, but it's true for all countries. And it's a major failure of practically all existing climate and environmental regulations that they don't take this into account.
- Maakuth 10y ago
  That might be true for net flows, but it seems that German production does not meet demand at nights very often, as per these statistics: https://www.energy-charts.de/power.htm https://www.energy-charts.de/power.htm . I do think that situation will get worse with increased PV installations, as they don't produce during nights. Grid storage is going to be needed. Of course it's an open market and the German expensive production such as gas turbines will not produce if cheaper power can be imported.
petre 10y ago
> Pretty remarkable growth in PV! No wonder. They have PV on almost every roof. Most of them have the south facing part fully covered as well.

by Maakuth 10y ago

hannob 10y ago

> I believe Germany imports quite a bit of nuclear power from France and coal power from Poland. No, that is totally wrong. While in an open net and marked there are always small exports and imports going on, overall Germany is an electricity exporter and imports are very small overall and not very relevant.

davrosthedalek 10y ago
There is another form of import which is much harder to judge. Germany imports a lot of stuff from e.g. China, so in some sense the energy production should offset what energy is used in other countries for the imported stuff.
- hannob 10y ago
  That is true, but it's true for all countries. And it's a major failure of practically all existing climate and environmental regulations that they don't take this into account.
Maakuth 10y ago
That might be true for net flows, but it seems that German production does not meet demand at nights very often, as per these statistics: https://www.energy-charts.de/power.htm https://www.energy-charts.de/power.htm . I do think that situation will get worse with increased PV installations, as they don't produce during nights. Grid storage is going to be needed. Of course it's an open market and the German expensive production such as gas turbines will not produce if cheaper power can be imported.

petre 10y ago

> Pretty remarkable growth in PV! No wonder. They have PV on almost every roof. Most of them have the south facing part fully covered as well.