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1) Looking at Germany's domestic electricity production without accounting for cross border trading is not meaningful. Germany is in the centre of the biggest i

1) Looking at Germany's domestic electricity production without accounting for cross border trading is not meaningful. Germany is in the centre of the biggest international electricity grid in the world. There's an insane amount of electrical connectors between Germany and all of its neighbours. In particular, Germany has gone from being a net exporter of electricity to a net importer, particularly from France, Switzerland, Austria, and Sweden (through Denmark). Total electricity used in Germany has barely decreased. 2) Germany's electricity prices have come down and stabilized. They're actually lower than before the war now. No longer the highest in the EU, though there is still room for it to come down more, but it'll take time as more renewables, batteries, and long-distance grid connectors are built out.

roenxi 2y ago
If we're going to assess Germany's energy policy - and the title of the article suggests we are - then their domestic energy generation is quite meaningful. It'd be like a country importing all their manufactured goods - that would reflect badly on a country's manufacturing sector even if their overall quality of life was high. Although in the case of Germany I'll be impressed if their QoL stays high. The trends are bad.
- eigenspace 2y ago
  The reason I brought that up is that often the implication people are hinting at when they suggest that total electricity production is significantly down, would be that Germans are using significantly less energy which has some quite worrying implications. The thing I wanted to point out though is that the amount of energy used by Germans hasn't actually changed very much, it's decreased a little, but nothing like what would be suggested by the generation figures. This is just because mainland europe actually has a more integrated and interconnected electrical grid than the USA does, and Germany is importing a lot of energy. > It'd be like a country importing all their manufactured goods - that would reflect badly on a country's manufacturing sector even if their overall quality of life was high. In this case, it'd be like if a country decided to do something about the fact that some manufactured good they were producing was toxic, and so they lowered the amount they produce of that good, and substitute it with imports while they also rapidly ramp up their ability to produce a non-toxic alternative.

roenxi 2y ago

If we're going to assess Germany's energy policy - and the title of the article suggests we are - then their domestic energy generation is quite meaningful. It'd be like a country importing all their manufactured goods - that would reflect badly on a country's manufacturing sector even if their overall quality of life was high. Although in the case of Germany I'll be impressed if their QoL stays high. The trends are bad.

eigenspace 2y ago
The reason I brought that up is that often the implication people are hinting at when they suggest that total electricity production is significantly down, would be that Germans are using significantly less energy which has some quite worrying implications. The thing I wanted to point out though is that the amount of energy used by Germans hasn't actually changed very much, it's decreased a little, but nothing like what would be suggested by the generation figures. This is just because mainland europe actually has a more integrated and interconnected electrical grid than the USA does, and Germany is importing a lot of energy. > It'd be like a country importing all their manufactured goods - that would reflect badly on a country's manufacturing sector even if their overall quality of life was high. In this case, it'd be like if a country decided to do something about the fact that some manufactured good they were producing was toxic, and so they lowered the amount they produce of that good, and substitute it with imports while they also rapidly ramp up their ability to produce a non-toxic alternative.