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Doing electrician’s certification in Germany right now. And there is elephant in the room - energy demand can’t be met internally anymore. So politicians draw n

by lnsru 3y ago

Doing electrician’s certification in Germany right now. And there is elephant in the room - energy demand can’t be met internally anymore. So politicians draw nice plans for smart grids and heat pumps with wall boxes that can be turned off remotely by grid operators. I really don’t know how it ends. Probably burning coal in Poland and begging France to provide enough nuclear energy.

TMWNN 3y ago
>Doing electrician’s certification in Germany right now. And there is elephant in the room - energy demand can’t be met internally anymore. I've heard that there has been substantial moving out of energy-intensive industries like aluminum from Germany because of this. >So politicians draw nice plans for smart grids and heat pumps with wall boxes that can be turned off remotely by grid operators. I really don’t know how it ends. Well, last winter wasn't as bad as expected/feared in Germany and elsewhere in Europe in terms of energy shortages. How is this winter looking?
- martin_a 3y ago
  > How is this winter looking? Gas storage is at 100% right now, so no shortcomings to expect really. [1] Building of renewables has been huge this year with 10.000 MW of new power generation in the first three quarters. Might still get a little bit higher with Q4/23 but as the whole year was expected with 9.000 MW in total those numbers look pretty good, with for example over 700k new solar systems across the country. [2] I was looking into getting a new electricity rate for my parents and have prices have fallen steeply in comparison to last year. Prices per kWh are down from something like 45 cents to 30 cents for fully renewable energy. While that might be still more expensive than elsewhere I think that's a good price. Little bump is that the Constitutional Court just ruled that money from the Covid-19 rescue packages, that was not used, might not be repurposed for fighting climate change. Obviously it's not like that money really _existed_ somewhere at all, but just moving it in the books was ruled not okay. We'll see what that leads too. Companies moving out of Germany because of high energy prices seems like a poor excuse. Power for the industry was/is subsidized like crazy, that has been cut somewhat down so everybody pays a fair share. For our company, that finally got things going. We're looking into modernizing our heating, utilizing heat recovery systems, switching all lights to LEDs (that alone is heavily subsidized, so not that expensive), putting up movement sensors to automatically turn off lights and installing even more solar panels on the roof. Numbers might look a bit worse next year due to those investments but it will help long-term. In society there's just quite a bit of fearmongering going on and people always feel like they personally are fucked especially hard in these times. Like ten times harder than the neighbor whose name they don't even know. Change sometimes hurts. But it's necessary. [1]: (German) https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/Gasspeicher-in-Deutschland-So-steht-es-um-die-Fuellstaende,gasspeicher120.html#gasspeicherfuellstand https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/Gasspeicher-in-Deutschla... [2]: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/ausbau-erneuerbare-energien-2225808 https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/ausbau-erne...
_ph_ 3y ago
You are wrong. Germany can meet its energy demands. However, a lot of times it is cheaper to buy surplus energy from neighboring countries.
- lnsru 3y ago
  I doubt that. Nuclear power plants provided rock solid baseload. It was always there. And now what? Coal and gas plants must be turned on to compensate missing generation capacity.
  - _ph_ 3y ago
    Yes, it was always there. Even when you didn't need it. That is why Germany used to export more electricity and France is very happy to be able to sell any unused capacity. In the last year, nuclear capacity was only 5% of the peak loads, so didn't make much of a difference. Germany can cover it easily. Meanwhile, coal usage is actually down, as renewables are ramped up quickly again. Germany added the equivalent of more than one nuclear reactor in solar in 2023 alone, with the speeds increasing. Yes, at times gas and for a while coal have to fill the gaps. But if those gaps get increasingly smaller, so does the amount of gas or coal used. Ironically a significant part of the coal used in 22 was due to exports to France, as they had to deal with quite a few reactors being taken off the net for repairs.

by lnsru 3y ago

TMWNN 3y ago

>Doing electrician’s certification in Germany right now. And there is elephant in the room - energy demand can’t be met internally anymore. I've heard that there has been substantial moving out of energy-intensive industries like aluminum from Germany because of this. >So politicians draw nice plans for smart grids and heat pumps with wall boxes that can be turned off remotely by grid operators. I really don’t know how it ends. Well, last winter wasn't as bad as expected/feared in Germany and elsewhere in Europe in terms of energy shortages. How is this winter looking?

martin_a 3y ago
> How is this winter looking? Gas storage is at 100% right now, so no shortcomings to expect really. [1] Building of renewables has been huge this year with 10.000 MW of new power generation in the first three quarters. Might still get a little bit higher with Q4/23 but as the whole year was expected with 9.000 MW in total those numbers look pretty good, with for example over 700k new solar systems across the country. [2] I was looking into getting a new electricity rate for my parents and have prices have fallen steeply in comparison to last year. Prices per kWh are down from something like 45 cents to 30 cents for fully renewable energy. While that might be still more expensive than elsewhere I think that's a good price. Little bump is that the Constitutional Court just ruled that money from the Covid-19 rescue packages, that was not used, might not be repurposed for fighting climate change. Obviously it's not like that money really _existed_ somewhere at all, but just moving it in the books was ruled not okay. We'll see what that leads too. Companies moving out of Germany because of high energy prices seems like a poor excuse. Power for the industry was/is subsidized like crazy, that has been cut somewhat down so everybody pays a fair share. For our company, that finally got things going. We're looking into modernizing our heating, utilizing heat recovery systems, switching all lights to LEDs (that alone is heavily subsidized, so not that expensive), putting up movement sensors to automatically turn off lights and installing even more solar panels on the roof. Numbers might look a bit worse next year due to those investments but it will help long-term. In society there's just quite a bit of fearmongering going on and people always feel like they personally are fucked especially hard in these times. Like ten times harder than the neighbor whose name they don't even know. Change sometimes hurts. But it's necessary. [1]: (German) https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/Gasspeicher-in-Deutschland-So-steht-es-um-die-Fuellstaende,gasspeicher120.html#gasspeicherfuellstand https://www.ndr.de/nachrichten/info/Gasspeicher-in-Deutschla... [2]: https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/ausbau-erneuerbare-energien-2225808 https://www.bundesregierung.de/breg-de/aktuelles/ausbau-erne...

_ph_ 3y ago

You are wrong. Germany can meet its energy demands. However, a lot of times it is cheaper to buy surplus energy from neighboring countries.

lnsru 3y ago
I doubt that. Nuclear power plants provided rock solid baseload. It was always there. And now what? Coal and gas plants must be turned on to compensate missing generation capacity.
- _ph_ 3y ago
  Yes, it was always there. Even when you didn't need it. That is why Germany used to export more electricity and France is very happy to be able to sell any unused capacity. In the last year, nuclear capacity was only 5% of the peak loads, so didn't make much of a difference. Germany can cover it easily. Meanwhile, coal usage is actually down, as renewables are ramped up quickly again. Germany added the equivalent of more than one nuclear reactor in solar in 2023 alone, with the speeds increasing. Yes, at times gas and for a while coal have to fill the gaps. But if those gaps get increasingly smaller, so does the amount of gas or coal used. Ironically a significant part of the coal used in 22 was due to exports to France, as they had to deal with quite a few reactors being taken off the net for repairs.