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Great question! Here's what Germany did: They invested a vast amount in local renewables, at above market prices, that had the effect of dramatically driving d

Great question! Here's what Germany did: They invested a vast amount in local renewables, at above market prices, that had the effect of dramatically driving down the global price of wind and solar. Because they radically expanded production capacity. Effectively, Germany gave the world a 'gift'! This had the long-term affect of dramatically increasing global solar + wind deployments (b/c prices fell) and transferring a huge economic boom to China, who actually made the solar panels and who's government subsidized production. Unfortunately, for domestics political reasons, Germany also shut down their nuclear plants and kept burning coal. So their total CO2 emissions have been roughly constant and about 10x higher, per person, than France or Sweden. The article is correct in that vastly more electrical transmission is needed to effectively integrate renewables. The article is misleading in describing price spikes. Yes, there are 2-45 days a year of price spikes for a few hours, but on average price is lower b/c of renewables outside of Germany. (Again, Germany did everyone the favor of buying renewables before they were economic.) Texas average prices are some of the lowest in the world. CA wholesale power prices are very low globally, while retail prices are sky high b/c PG&E is a monopoly combined with an inadvertent domestic terrorist organization. Something the article only eludes to, the energy transition covers many more areas than just power production. Germany has done a bad job in both transportation and building emissions. They're overly reliant on Russian natural gas for heating and have been slow to embrace electric cars (VW is doing 'ok' but not great). Both issues are separate to renewables but major failings of German policy to either reduce emissions or increase energy security. Overall, the German investment in renewables electricity production is a massive success and global gift. Completely underrecognized. Everything else sits in the category between "failure" and "didn't even try."

99_00 6y ago
So basically German "failure", but global success? And everyone else who tries it will do better because Germans ate the costs?
- mrDmrTmrJ 6y ago
  "everyone else who tries it will do better because Germans ate the costs?" Yes on both your points. Sadly, German industry didn't get the benefit. Which makes it harder to convince the country to do stuff like this again. Very different from Tesla, where a bunch of silicon valley people ate the cost (e.g. VCs, roadster, 2012 model-S) and then many benefitted as they own stock.
  - jacobush 6y ago
    They got a less fucked world. That’s good for Germans too, and we are blessed they are big enough to make a difference.
    - akie 6y ago
      Not sure why you're being downvoted here.
  - triceratops 6y ago
    They may have prevented a far larger wave of climate refugees than the current batch of migrants and refugees that have proved so politically costly for the ruling party in Germany.
- _ph_ 6y ago
  As a German, I don't consider this a failure. Yes, it was expensive, and probably it was more expensive than it needed to because execution wasn't perfect, but this year up today, Germany has produced 51% of the electricity via renewable sources. And of course Germany gets the same cost savings as anyone else when moving further forward with renewables. Also the guaranteed high prices for solar and wind from the early years are currently slowly running out, so currently those costs are falling quickly and the true cost saving of more renewables will be effective in the electricity prices in Germany.
sien 6y ago
Looking at the data on rolled out photovoltaics from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics It looks like Europe as a whole is only a fraction of global spending from 2012 onwards. Germany is only a part of that. How do you discount the counterfactual that Solar power costs were going down anyway as there was global demand anyway for solar panels at reasonable scale? Also, do you have any reference for anyone at the start of the Energiewende saying that the aim was to reduce the cost of solar power rather than reduce emissions? It seems that the goals are being shifted to avoid people looking at Germany spending hundreds of billions of dollars and, as you point out, achieving a result that is substantially worse than that of France, that did something similar in the 1970s with different technology.
- mrDmrTmrJ 6y ago
  All great questions. When I look at the "Worldwide growth of photovoltaics" plot at the top of the page you linked, I see the "Green" (European) color dominate from 2008-2013 (maybe 80%+ of installs). Germany purchases, peaking in 2011, where in the heart of when solar price declines occurred. By the same chart, deployments in the rest of the world explode post 2014, after the big price declines. Here's an article from 2011 (concurrent with German deployments) showing the immense price falls at that time: https://rameznaam.com/2011/03/17/expis-moores-law-really-a-fair-comparison-for-solar/ https://rameznaam.com/2011/03/17/expis-moores-law-really-a-f... Yes, there's a huge 'chicken' v 'egg' question here: deployment vs. price declines from tech learning rates. Someone had to kick-start this process by for huge deployments when it was uneconomical, to then drive scaling in production. Germany footed the bill. Global deployments then soured after those purchases and price declines. Perhaps someone else would have done this later, but I don't really care about the historical counterfactual, I care about who's balance sheet the uneconomic debt, to kickstart the virtuous cycle, sits on. So I credit Germany. Yes, I am attributing a success to the Energiewende that was not part of the initial plan. But I do think it's an important success. Here's reference: https://xenetwork.org/ets/episodes/episode-4-energiewende/ https://xenetwork.org/ets/episodes/episode-4-energiewende/ My understanding of the Energiewende, is that it was never focused on climate. Rather is was a plan to create economic energy independence at a time of very high and rising oil prices (e.g. 2008-2014). So from 2020, the plan looks like a failure b/c 1) the twin tech. breakthroughs of low priced renewables and fracking have "slayed" the monster of rising high hydrocarbon prices 2) we now view climate change as a far bigger issue. If energy prices had stayed high, I think we'd view the Energiewende as achieving it's stated goals. The situation has changed. Though, I'll be the first person to say the CO2 goals of the energy transition are more important than what the Energiewende focused on.
xyzzyz 6y ago
> CA wholesale power prices are very low globally, while retail prices are sky high b/c PG&E is a monopoly combined with an inadvertent domestic terrorist organization. What "inadvertent domestic terrorist organization"? BTW, PG&E prices are set by California government.
- r00fus 6y ago
  PG&E practices the time honored tradition of stochastic terrorism through incompetence (avoiding maintenance commitments) and regulatory capture (to avoid the penalties). https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/18/business/pge-california-wildfires.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/18/business/pge-...
- dredmorbius 6y ago
  Look at PG&E's recent accident and incident record.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> PG&E is a monopoly combined with an inadvertent domestic terrorist organization. You can't be an inadvertent terrorist organization. Not everyone who is responsible for multiple lethal felonies is a terrorist.
- mrDmrTmrJ 6y ago
  Yes, "inadvertent terrorist" would normally be a contradiction in terms, as 'terrorism is the act of killing innocent people to spread terror and extort a body politic to make a political change'. So this can't be inadvertent. Yet, PG&E 1) kills innocent people 2) demands more money from the population it kills 3) is unable to stop killing people 4) covers up their malfeasance in court 5) repeatedly sets my state on fire. Agreed that PG&E is "responsible for multiple lethal felonies." But, in your comment, I'll note you only identified the problem instead of proposed a solution! So what English language phrase do you suggest to describe the above behavior? Does 'Functionally equivalent to a violent Mafioso organization that doesn't actually want to kill but does wants all your money and can't stop killing you?' satisfy your standards for the use of the English language? I reserve the right to be hyperbolic in my frustration as long as PG&E keeps this up. Politely, I ask you to resolve the problem you identified. As by the use of the word 'inadvertent', I demonstrated that I know the definition in my initial comment :) Finally, does "Substantially more evil than Comcast" work here?
  - sitkack 6y ago
    You need your own animated show. Brilliant stuff.
vlovich123 6y ago
Didn’t the 2009 Recovery Act that Obama spearheaded also have a heavily invest in renewables? [1] Over 10 years it averaged to about 9 billion per year. I seem to recall that this investment push was twofold: investment in American renewable tech and rebates to spur demand. China heavily cut solar prices to undercut those solar investments (leading to Solyndra’s bankruptcy) but that had the effect of lowering prices further spurring demand worldwide. I don’t have a sense of Germany’s impact in this space as I haven’t kept abreast of their investment nor about the specifics of renewable investments more broadly. [1] https://grist.org/energy/obamas-recovery-act-breathed-life-into-renewables-now-they-need-rescuing/ https://grist.org/energy/obamas-recovery-act-breathed-life-i...
- badestrand 6y ago
  Germany started in the year 2000 with guaranteed, high prices to providers of solar/wind energy and that their feeding into the electrical grid has preference over other providers. Additionally they employed grants for citizens deploying solar on their roofs. That massively raised the electricity prices, resulting in the world's costliest electricity. Around 24% (!) of the German electricity price is a Renewable Surcharge[1]. With a >$350 billion/year power industry revenue it is easy to see that Germany's contribution to kickstart large scale solar and wind power generation can hardly be overstated. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany#/media/File%3AElectricity-price-germany-components.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_German...
  - sitkack 6y ago
    So smart! Things are cheaper on the past, best time to plant a tree. They absolutely did the right thing for themselves and the whole world. Thank you Germany!
- leipert 6y ago
  Apparently the first German law was introduced in 2000 [0]. I see the argument that is made, Germany pushing the sector and I remember a lot of folks investing into solar in the 2000s. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Sources_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Sour...

99_00 6y ago

So basically German "failure", but global success? And everyone else who tries it will do better because Germans ate the costs?

mrDmrTmrJ 6y ago
"everyone else who tries it will do better because Germans ate the costs?" Yes on both your points. Sadly, German industry didn't get the benefit. Which makes it harder to convince the country to do stuff like this again. Very different from Tesla, where a bunch of silicon valley people ate the cost (e.g. VCs, roadster, 2012 model-S) and then many benefitted as they own stock.
- jacobush 6y ago
  They got a less fucked world. That’s good for Germans too, and we are blessed they are big enough to make a difference.
  - akie 6y ago
    Not sure why you're being downvoted here.
- triceratops 6y ago
  They may have prevented a far larger wave of climate refugees than the current batch of migrants and refugees that have proved so politically costly for the ruling party in Germany.
_ph_ 6y ago
As a German, I don't consider this a failure. Yes, it was expensive, and probably it was more expensive than it needed to because execution wasn't perfect, but this year up today, Germany has produced 51% of the electricity via renewable sources. And of course Germany gets the same cost savings as anyone else when moving further forward with renewables. Also the guaranteed high prices for solar and wind from the early years are currently slowly running out, so currently those costs are falling quickly and the true cost saving of more renewables will be effective in the electricity prices in Germany.

sien 6y ago

Looking at the data on rolled out photovoltaics from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Growth_of_photovoltaics It looks like Europe as a whole is only a fraction of global spending from 2012 onwards. Germany is only a part of that. How do you discount the counterfactual that Solar power costs were going down anyway as there was global demand anyway for solar panels at reasonable scale? Also, do you have any reference for anyone at the start of the Energiewende saying that the aim was to reduce the cost of solar power rather than reduce emissions? It seems that the goals are being shifted to avoid people looking at Germany spending hundreds of billions of dollars and, as you point out, achieving a result that is substantially worse than that of France, that did something similar in the 1970s with different technology.

mrDmrTmrJ 6y ago
All great questions. When I look at the "Worldwide growth of photovoltaics" plot at the top of the page you linked, I see the "Green" (European) color dominate from 2008-2013 (maybe 80%+ of installs). Germany purchases, peaking in 2011, where in the heart of when solar price declines occurred. By the same chart, deployments in the rest of the world explode post 2014, after the big price declines. Here's an article from 2011 (concurrent with German deployments) showing the immense price falls at that time: https://rameznaam.com/2011/03/17/expis-moores-law-really-a-fair-comparison-for-solar/ https://rameznaam.com/2011/03/17/expis-moores-law-really-a-f... Yes, there's a huge 'chicken' v 'egg' question here: deployment vs. price declines from tech learning rates. Someone had to kick-start this process by for huge deployments when it was uneconomical, to then drive scaling in production. Germany footed the bill. Global deployments then soured after those purchases and price declines. Perhaps someone else would have done this later, but I don't really care about the historical counterfactual, I care about who's balance sheet the uneconomic debt, to kickstart the virtuous cycle, sits on. So I credit Germany. Yes, I am attributing a success to the Energiewende that was not part of the initial plan. But I do think it's an important success. Here's reference: https://xenetwork.org/ets/episodes/episode-4-energiewende/ https://xenetwork.org/ets/episodes/episode-4-energiewende/ My understanding of the Energiewende, is that it was never focused on climate. Rather is was a plan to create economic energy independence at a time of very high and rising oil prices (e.g. 2008-2014). So from 2020, the plan looks like a failure b/c 1) the twin tech. breakthroughs of low priced renewables and fracking have "slayed" the monster of rising high hydrocarbon prices 2) we now view climate change as a far bigger issue. If energy prices had stayed high, I think we'd view the Energiewende as achieving it's stated goals. The situation has changed. Though, I'll be the first person to say the CO2 goals of the energy transition are more important than what the Energiewende focused on.

xyzzyz 6y ago

> CA wholesale power prices are very low globally, while retail prices are sky high b/c PG&E is a monopoly combined with an inadvertent domestic terrorist organization. What "inadvertent domestic terrorist organization"? BTW, PG&E prices are set by California government.

r00fus 6y ago
PG&E practices the time honored tradition of stochastic terrorism through incompetence (avoiding maintenance commitments) and regulatory capture (to avoid the penalties). https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/18/business/pge-california-wildfires.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/03/18/business/pge-...
dredmorbius 6y ago
Look at PG&E's recent accident and incident record.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> PG&E is a monopoly combined with an inadvertent domestic terrorist organization. You can't be an inadvertent terrorist organization. Not everyone who is responsible for multiple lethal felonies is a terrorist.

mrDmrTmrJ 6y ago
Yes, "inadvertent terrorist" would normally be a contradiction in terms, as 'terrorism is the act of killing innocent people to spread terror and extort a body politic to make a political change'. So this can't be inadvertent. Yet, PG&E 1) kills innocent people 2) demands more money from the population it kills 3) is unable to stop killing people 4) covers up their malfeasance in court 5) repeatedly sets my state on fire. Agreed that PG&E is "responsible for multiple lethal felonies." But, in your comment, I'll note you only identified the problem instead of proposed a solution! So what English language phrase do you suggest to describe the above behavior? Does 'Functionally equivalent to a violent Mafioso organization that doesn't actually want to kill but does wants all your money and can't stop killing you?' satisfy your standards for the use of the English language? I reserve the right to be hyperbolic in my frustration as long as PG&E keeps this up. Politely, I ask you to resolve the problem you identified. As by the use of the word 'inadvertent', I demonstrated that I know the definition in my initial comment :) Finally, does "Substantially more evil than Comcast" work here?
- sitkack 6y ago
  You need your own animated show. Brilliant stuff.

vlovich123 6y ago

Didn’t the 2009 Recovery Act that Obama spearheaded also have a heavily invest in renewables? [1] Over 10 years it averaged to about 9 billion per year. I seem to recall that this investment push was twofold: investment in American renewable tech and rebates to spur demand. China heavily cut solar prices to undercut those solar investments (leading to Solyndra’s bankruptcy) but that had the effect of lowering prices further spurring demand worldwide. I don’t have a sense of Germany’s impact in this space as I haven’t kept abreast of their investment nor about the specifics of renewable investments more broadly. [1] https://grist.org/energy/obamas-recovery-act-breathed-life-into-renewables-now-they-need-rescuing/ https://grist.org/energy/obamas-recovery-act-breathed-life-i...

badestrand 6y ago
Germany started in the year 2000 with guaranteed, high prices to providers of solar/wind energy and that their feeding into the electrical grid has preference over other providers. Additionally they employed grants for citizens deploying solar on their roofs. That massively raised the electricity prices, resulting in the world's costliest electricity. Around 24% (!) of the German electricity price is a Renewable Surcharge[1]. With a >$350 billion/year power industry revenue it is easy to see that Germany's contribution to kickstart large scale solar and wind power generation can hardly be overstated. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany#/media/File%3AElectricity-price-germany-components.png https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_German...
- sitkack 6y ago
  So smart! Things are cheaper on the past, best time to plant a tree. They absolutely did the right thing for themselves and the whole world. Thank you Germany!
leipert 6y ago
Apparently the first German law was introduced in 2000 [0]. I see the argument that is made, Germany pushing the sector and I remember a lot of folks investing into solar in the 2000s. [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Sources_Act https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Renewable_Energy_Sour...