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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_photov

by 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.
jeremysalwen 6y ago
I'm not sure that graph contradicts OP's narrative. It clearly shows European PV capacity rapidly growing from almost nothing to near-present levels from 2006 to 2012, with the rest of the world accounting for only a tiny fraction. This corresponds to a time period when solar prices dropped dramatically: https://samsetproject.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/fall-in-solar-prices-chart-1.png https://samsetproject.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/fall-in-so... Then, once PV prices were cheap, the rest of the world bought a ton of cheap PV capacity. Now, this doesn't prove that the reduction in price was caused by European PV spending, but the data certainly is strongly compatible with that claim.

by sien 6y ago

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.

jeremysalwen 6y ago

I'm not sure that graph contradicts OP's narrative. It clearly shows European PV capacity rapidly growing from almost nothing to near-present levels from 2006 to 2012, with the rest of the world accounting for only a tiny fraction. This corresponds to a time period when solar prices dropped dramatically: https://samsetproject.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/fall-in-solar-prices-chart-1.png https://samsetproject.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/fall-in-so... Then, once PV prices were cheap, the rest of the world bought a ton of cheap PV capacity. Now, this doesn't prove that the reduction in price was caused by European PV spending, but the data certainly is strongly compatible with that claim.