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This is highly misleading information from the usual suspects. The total output in kWh of heavily subsidized solar/wind energy is not the issue. The problem of

This is highly misleading information from the usual suspects. The total output in kWh of heavily subsidized solar/wind energy is not the issue. The problem of the "Energiewende" is that the highly volatile wind/solar output can not supply the base load without massive buffer storage. The technology for that storage does not exist. Only nuclear, coal or the more expensive natural gas can supply the base load. What actually makes the whole charade work is that Germany dumps surplus electricity (at a loss) during peak times and then imports what's missing during down times from other countries (for example the highly nuclearized France). If all the neighboring countries did what Germany does, it couldn't work.

lispm 8y ago
> for example the highly nuclearized France Which does the same. France imports electricity in high demand times (winter) or low production times (hot summer weeks, maintenance, ...). France dumps cheap nuclear on its neighbor countries in times of surplus production because of low demand. https://www.montelnews.com/en/story/france-supply-risk-as-nuclear-output-to-hit-10-yr-low--tso/953933 https://www.montelnews.com/en/story/france-supply-risk-as-nu...
- oska 8y ago
  A very good point and one which brings up the misunderstanding of what base-load power is. Base-load power is the power that continues to be generated even when there is low demand for it. Base-load is generated by energy production plants that are extremely expensive to shut down / run up again. Base-load does not have much relevance in the energy environment we're heading to where excess supply can be stored and then excess demand can be delivered from storage.
  - zeroname 8y ago
    > Base-load power is the power that continues to be generated even when there is low demand for it. That is wrong. Base load is the minimum demand of electricity at any given moment over a time span. The base load that a wind turbine without buffer storage can supply is zero. The same goes for solar, obviously. The vast majority of renewable energy in Germany happens to be wind, its storage and transport remains the biggest (and unsolved) challenge.
    - lispm 8y ago
      > its storage and transport remains the biggest (and unsolved) challenge. It's not 'unsolved' - it's just that it was economically not useful nor necessary nor wanted to store wind electricity in larger scales and this might be the case for another decade. Then we will see more storage coming online. I live in Northern Germany with some possibility for higher wind electricity production. To store that one way is to build HVDC lines to Norway to store the excess electricity there as hydro power. One line is currently under construction and another one has been planned. The Netherlands is operating such a line to Norway since 2008. Additionally inside Germany there is more delivery of wind-generated electricity to the south of Germany planned. It's not 'unsolved' in the sense that we don't know what to do. It's just that storage needs are just starting to increase. Similar to PV solar technology - without a market no investment. Without investment, no market. Germany jump-started the PV solar market with its investments due to Renewable Energy Law. We will see similar effects in the coming decades for storage.
      - zeroname 8y ago
        > It's not 'unsolved' - it's just that it was economically not useful nor necessary nor wanted to store wind electricity in larger scales and this might be the case for another decade. Then we will see more storage coming online. The whole thing wasn't economically useful or necessary from the very beginning, otherwise it wouldn't have needed massive subsidies that made Germany have the most expensive electricity in Europe. > It's not 'unsolved' in the sense that we don't know what to do. It's just that storage needs are just starting to increase. You don't know what to do. The storage requirements are massive: https://www.oulu.fi/blogs/how-much-storage-does-the-energiewende-need https://www.oulu.fi/blogs/how-much-storage-does-the-energiew... Think about it, if you did know what to do, why aren't all the politicians pointing to some clear-cut roadmap on how to achieve the goal, using all the great engineering prowess that Germany is famous for?
        lispm 8y ago
        > The whole thing wasn't economically useful or necessary from the very beginning That's your claim. Enough people here have been thinking the opposite. > otherwise it wouldn't have needed massive subsidies that made Germany have the most expensive electricity in Europe. Actually Germany a) does not have generally the most expensive electricity in Europe - check out industry prices for electricity in Europe. If you followed recent protests in France, then you have seen that is also about higher energy prices for the public - which has been kept artificially low so far. https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/yellow-vests-killed-eu-bid-to-phase-out-regulated-electricity-prices/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/yellow-ves... b) its also useful to make energy expensive - it helps to keep energy consumption low and the money gets invested back into modern infrastructure, research&development, build-up of new industries, ... > The storage requirements are massive That's a very shallow study about a non-goal (100%). A more detailed study from 2013: https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin2/Projekte/2013/speicher-in-der-energiewende/Agora_Speicherstudie_Web.pdf https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin2/Projekte/2013/s... a shorter english version https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin2/Projekte/2013/speicher-in-der-energiewende/Agora_Speicherstudie_EN_web.pdf https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin2/Projekte/2013/s... The current big picture of the Energiewende for 2030... https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin2/Projekte/2017/Big_Picture/134_Big-Picture_EN_WEB.pdf https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin2/Projekte/2017/B...
makomk 8y ago
Of course, French nuclear plants have the opposite problem: they're limited in their ability to do anything other than a constant base load supply, even though they do much more load following than say US nuclear power. So France has to dump surplus electricity at low-load times and then import power at peak times. I don't think mixing wind, solar and nuclear will fix this either - France's peak demand and its highest net imports are during winter cold spells, when solar and probably also wind output is at a low.
- filmor 8y ago
  Wind output is highest in Winter.
filmor 8y ago
Solar is not very volatile, it's basically a cos^2 around mid-day + local cloud cover changes. The biggest issue is actually a bad forecast for the peak output (essentially the "mist" forecast), as the differences spread over the whole day.
- tjansen 8y ago
  In Germany, solar output is much lower in winter months than in summer months. Unfortunately, energy consumption is higher in winter (and will likely increase as most homes are currently heated with fossil fuels and need to switch to electricity). In summer, there are days when renewables create over 100% of the consumed energy. But just a few days ago, they were at 7%. Without the use of fossil fuels, or a way to store energy produced in summer for consumption in winter, renewables can't come even close to the energy levels needed even for today's demand. And, as fossil fuels are replaced by electricity, it is expected that future demand will double or triple.
  - filmor 8y ago
    As I said somewhere else, wind energy output is much higher (on average) in winter. Also, no one in their right mind will currently switch to electric heating in Germany, why would they? There is natural gas (for now), maybe later on biogas and already now wood pellets for heating.
- zeroname 8y ago
  > Solar is not very volatile Only if you disregard the fact that that the sun doesn't shine at night.
  - filmor 8y ago
    Volatility in the energy sector means how "forecastable" the source is. Solar at night is perfectly forecastable.
  - Jedd 8y ago
    > Only if you disregard the fact that that the sun doesn't shine at night. Only if you disregard the fact that 'solar' can mean one or both of photovoltaic cells and solar thermal (which peaks around sunset and carries on producing power into the late evening).

lispm 8y ago

> for example the highly nuclearized France Which does the same. France imports electricity in high demand times (winter) or low production times (hot summer weeks, maintenance, ...). France dumps cheap nuclear on its neighbor countries in times of surplus production because of low demand. https://www.montelnews.com/en/story/france-supply-risk-as-nuclear-output-to-hit-10-yr-low--tso/953933 https://www.montelnews.com/en/story/france-supply-risk-as-nu...

oska 8y ago
A very good point and one which brings up the misunderstanding of what base-load power is. Base-load power is the power that continues to be generated even when there is low demand for it. Base-load is generated by energy production plants that are extremely expensive to shut down / run up again. Base-load does not have much relevance in the energy environment we're heading to where excess supply can be stored and then excess demand can be delivered from storage.
- zeroname 8y ago
  > Base-load power is the power that continues to be generated even when there is low demand for it. That is wrong. Base load is the minimum demand of electricity at any given moment over a time span. The base load that a wind turbine without buffer storage can supply is zero. The same goes for solar, obviously. The vast majority of renewable energy in Germany happens to be wind, its storage and transport remains the biggest (and unsolved) challenge.
  - lispm 8y ago
    > its storage and transport remains the biggest (and unsolved) challenge. It's not 'unsolved' - it's just that it was economically not useful nor necessary nor wanted to store wind electricity in larger scales and this might be the case for another decade. Then we will see more storage coming online. I live in Northern Germany with some possibility for higher wind electricity production. To store that one way is to build HVDC lines to Norway to store the excess electricity there as hydro power. One line is currently under construction and another one has been planned. The Netherlands is operating such a line to Norway since 2008. Additionally inside Germany there is more delivery of wind-generated electricity to the south of Germany planned. It's not 'unsolved' in the sense that we don't know what to do. It's just that storage needs are just starting to increase. Similar to PV solar technology - without a market no investment. Without investment, no market. Germany jump-started the PV solar market with its investments due to Renewable Energy Law. We will see similar effects in the coming decades for storage.
    - zeroname 8y ago
      > It's not 'unsolved' - it's just that it was economically not useful nor necessary nor wanted to store wind electricity in larger scales and this might be the case for another decade. Then we will see more storage coming online. The whole thing wasn't economically useful or necessary from the very beginning, otherwise it wouldn't have needed massive subsidies that made Germany have the most expensive electricity in Europe. > It's not 'unsolved' in the sense that we don't know what to do. It's just that storage needs are just starting to increase. You don't know what to do. The storage requirements are massive: https://www.oulu.fi/blogs/how-much-storage-does-the-energiewende-need https://www.oulu.fi/blogs/how-much-storage-does-the-energiew... Think about it, if you did know what to do, why aren't all the politicians pointing to some clear-cut roadmap on how to achieve the goal, using all the great engineering prowess that Germany is famous for?
      - lispm 8y ago
        > The whole thing wasn't economically useful or necessary from the very beginning That's your claim. Enough people here have been thinking the opposite. > otherwise it wouldn't have needed massive subsidies that made Germany have the most expensive electricity in Europe. Actually Germany a) does not have generally the most expensive electricity in Europe - check out industry prices for electricity in Europe. If you followed recent protests in France, then you have seen that is also about higher energy prices for the public - which has been kept artificially low so far. https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/yellow-vests-killed-eu-bid-to-phase-out-regulated-electricity-prices/ https://www.euractiv.com/section/electricity/news/yellow-ves... b) its also useful to make energy expensive - it helps to keep energy consumption low and the money gets invested back into modern infrastructure, research&development, build-up of new industries, ... > The storage requirements are massive That's a very shallow study about a non-goal (100%). A more detailed study from 2013: https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin2/Projekte/2013/speicher-in-der-energiewende/Agora_Speicherstudie_Web.pdf https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin2/Projekte/2013/s... a shorter english version https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin2/Projekte/2013/speicher-in-der-energiewende/Agora_Speicherstudie_EN_web.pdf https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin2/Projekte/2013/s... The current big picture of the Energiewende for 2030... https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin2/Projekte/2017/Big_Picture/134_Big-Picture_EN_WEB.pdf https://www.agora-energiewende.de/fileadmin2/Projekte/2017/B...

makomk 8y ago

Of course, French nuclear plants have the opposite problem: they're limited in their ability to do anything other than a constant base load supply, even though they do much more load following than say US nuclear power. So France has to dump surplus electricity at low-load times and then import power at peak times. I don't think mixing wind, solar and nuclear will fix this either - France's peak demand and its highest net imports are during winter cold spells, when solar and probably also wind output is at a low.

filmor 8y ago
Wind output is highest in Winter.

filmor 8y ago

Solar is not very volatile, it's basically a cos^2 around mid-day + local cloud cover changes. The biggest issue is actually a bad forecast for the peak output (essentially the "mist" forecast), as the differences spread over the whole day.

tjansen 8y ago
In Germany, solar output is much lower in winter months than in summer months. Unfortunately, energy consumption is higher in winter (and will likely increase as most homes are currently heated with fossil fuels and need to switch to electricity). In summer, there are days when renewables create over 100% of the consumed energy. But just a few days ago, they were at 7%. Without the use of fossil fuels, or a way to store energy produced in summer for consumption in winter, renewables can't come even close to the energy levels needed even for today's demand. And, as fossil fuels are replaced by electricity, it is expected that future demand will double or triple.
- filmor 8y ago
  As I said somewhere else, wind energy output is much higher (on average) in winter. Also, no one in their right mind will currently switch to electric heating in Germany, why would they? There is natural gas (for now), maybe later on biogas and already now wood pellets for heating.
zeroname 8y ago
> Solar is not very volatile Only if you disregard the fact that that the sun doesn't shine at night.
- filmor 8y ago
  Volatility in the energy sector means how "forecastable" the source is. Solar at night is perfectly forecastable.
- Jedd 8y ago
  > Only if you disregard the fact that that the sun doesn't shine at night. Only if you disregard the fact that 'solar' can mean one or both of photovoltaic cells and solar thermal (which peaks around sunset and carries on producing power into the late evening).