> Over the past five years alone, the Energiewende has cost Germany €32 billion ($36 billion) annually... The reason why this is so expensive for Germany is th

> Over the past five years alone, the Energiewende has cost Germany €32 billion ($36 billion) annually... The reason why this is so expensive for Germany is the political decision to subsidise renewable energy generation by guaranteeing energy purchase prices for 20 years via the EEG law. This led to a lot of the non-competitive inefficient early-gen solar and wind being installed in Germany, which will continue to receive subsidies for another 5-10 years; for new generation being installed, the subsidies reduce every year. One of the intended effects was that the solar and wind industries had income that they could invest in research to improving the cost and efficiency of solar and wind generation. IIRC an article that I'm sadly unable to find now claimed that this accelerated the development such that today's very competitive costs would only be achieved 6-7 years later if there had never been an EEG, which I find a remarkable achievement. Of course if you're installing solar or wind in your country today you'll benefit from these improvements. > Der Spiegel cites a recent estimate that it would cost Germany “€3.4 trillion ($3.8 trillion),” or seven times more than it spent from 2000 to 2019, to increase solar and wind three to five-fold by 2050. Assuming this is the article you mean: https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-failure-on-the-road-to-a-renewable-future-a-1266586-amp.html https://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/german-failure-... What the article actually says: According to ESYS, [...] by 2050, the costs would add up to 2 to 3.4 trillion euros, depending on the scenario. Other forecasts fluctuate between 500 million and about 2 trillion euros. I'm thinking 500 million has to be a typo and should be 500 billion; still that's quite a range of estimates.