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Wind and solar overtake fossil fuels in Germany for the first time
- yeah879846 2mo ago[dead]
- citrin_ru 2mo agoIt's a good news and a milestone to celebrate but if we count all energy and not only electricity and not only developed world then the progress is not as fast unfortunately [1]. Not a long time ago I've seen a post arguing based on the data [1] that renewables are irrelevant and should not be taken seriously and fossils will the main source for the lifetime. [1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitution https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-energy-substitutio...
- ragebol 2mo agoWhen looking at hat kind of graphs, it's good to keep in mind that burning hydrocarbons is relatively inefficient: only ~20-30% of the energy in the fuel turns into useful work, while electricity is much, much more efficient. So, we need much less of it. Still a long ways to go regardless, but much less bleak. And also, exponentially growing deployments of wind and solar are harder to spot on this 2-year old graph which goes only up to 2024.
- ben_w 2mo agoIndeed. That exponential has renewables being ~100% of electricity in the early to mid 2030s, and approximately ~100% of all power in the late 2030s to early 2040s even without the efficiency improvement from direct electricity use.
- bluGill 2mo agoThat is very much a it depends. The best combined cycle power plants get around 60% efficient. The gas engine in your car is in the ideal case around 45% efficient - but the way you drive in the real world is only about 20-30% efficient.
- Veedrac 2mo agoThey account for this. > Primary energy is based on the substitution method and measured in terawatt-hours.
- foota 2mo ago> only ~20-30% of the energy in the fuel turns into useful work, while electricity is much, much more efficient. So, we need much less of it. Isn't a lot of energy used for heating, not work?
- bluGill 2mo agoMaybe, but that other 70-80% is waste - we could turn it into useful heat, but instead we vent it to the environment. I've seen plans to run an engine in your furnace, thus creating both electric (at 20-30%, and capturing the rest as heat to the house. I've never seen this in the real world and experts who have looked as those systems said they won't enter a building that has one using that design. (it is possible to make a design they would trust, but they haven't seen any)
- ZeroGravitas 2mo agoYes but by a weird coincidence most of that heat can be provided by heat pumps at a similar 3-5x ratio.
- inigyou 2mo ago(it's not a coincidence, it's the exact opposite formula. You can only get 20% out of a certain heat engine because running it in reverse would be a 500% efficient heat pump, and the closed loop can't be more than 100%. This still applies even if the engine isn't built to be able to act as a heat pump, because some other engine could.)
- ragebol 2mo agoI don't see why that would be the case. Why is the 20% of eg. an internal combustion engine coupled to the 500% COP of a heat pump? I see a vague connection as an ICE also uses expanding gasses etc, but that's about it. What am I missing?
- inigyou 2mo agoAn ICE is not an ideal heat engine. But if you did have an ideal heat engine, it could either produce work by reducing a temperature difference, or increase a temperature difference when provided with work. No physical device can do better than an ideal heat engine.
- afarah1 2mo agoAlso interesting to look at the chart per country. [2] US fossil fuel is 4x entire Germany, while for China just coal is over 8x all of Germany. So good and relevant news at a local scale! But pretty irrelevant at a global one... A scale at which there is more talk than action in parts of the world, probably because it would be too economically painful if not unfeasible to e.g. limit or tax imports, outsourcing etc by emission source. [2] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-energy-source-bar?country=USA~CHN~CAN~IND~BRA~FRA~DEU https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/primary-energy-source-bar...
- eigenspace 2mo agoThis is such a misleading comparison. The energy used that comes from a solar panel is already in an extremely low-entropy, highly usable form. The energy used from a fossil fuel is highly inefficient and hard to harness. For instance, if you just go by the number of joules in an electric car's battery versus the number of joules in a gasoline car's tank with the same range, you'll see that a 'normal' electric car gets around 15 kWh/100km whereas even a rather efficient gas car needs something more like 50kWh/100km. That's because gas combusion loses gigantic amounts of energy to heat and sound. If you want to talk about 'total energy consumption' and compare solar/wind against fossil fuels, you should count the amount of energy in the sunlight that hits the surface of the solar panel, or the amount of wind energy hitting the turbine blade, rather than the amount of energy they deliver to the grid.
- NishanStepak 2mo agoPart of this is about a new way to store energy. In the Netherlands, they have started storing heat energy with sand, in Germany, they are using bricks. This has some advantages. It allows the direct use of heat for industrial processes and heating industrial and commercial facilities. They can either convert energy into electricity or use the heat directly. This technology can be used with a wide variety of energy sources. This includes nuclear because it allows thermal storage of excess heat from nuclear energy. This kind of setup is supposed to be more stable for the grid and more reliable for storing energy.
- raphinou 2mo agoI think I have read that heat is hard to convert to useful energy. Can someone confirm? But the, if that's true, why use heat as energy storage?
- atoav 2mo agoUse it directly, see my silbling comment.
- raphinou 2mo agoso all such 'energy' storage are to be used as heat and no other form of energy? The name energy storage is somewhat confusing then, even if not incorrect? Heat storage would be more accurate iiuc.
- atoav 2mo agoNo of course not. But using the heat directly is of course favourable, since you don't have conversion losses. But that doesn't mean you can't use it also to power turbines as you wish to. The advantage of that type of storage is that it scales very well. Batteries are cool when space is an issue. But when it is not, digging out a hole and insulating it is surprisingly effective per unit of work stored there.
- QuercusMax 2mo ago
- suddenlybananas 2mo agoImagine how much better carbon emissions would be in Germany if they hadn't dismantled nuclear! https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/FR/live/fifteen_minutes https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/FR/live/fifteen_min... Anyone is free to compare France and Germany here.
- toomuchtodo 2mo agoThose carbon emissions are tuition. Germany is now ramping battery storage, as most of Europe is, to push out more expensive fossil gas. Ember Energy: Batteries and demand flexibility are ready to scale across the EU - https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/batteries-and-demand-flexibility-are-ready-to-scale-across-the-eu/ https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/batteries-and-deman... - June 24th, 2026 ("The EU battery fleet is projected to grow fourfold, from 37 GW in 2025 to 178 GW by 2030. As this growth unfolds, batteries reduce the need for regular gas backup. By 2030, EU batteries could deliver in a single hour over 80% of the power that all EU gas power plants combined can generate in the same period, up from about 20% in 2025.") Largest battery storage in Germany set for partial commissioning - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49104584 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49104584 - July 2026 (0 comments) Germany's solar installations drop while new battery storage hits record - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48019046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48019046 - May 2026 (8 comments)
- suddenlybananas 2mo agoThey could have done all this without dismantling nuclear power and emitting more carbon than they otherwise would have.
- toomuchtodo 2mo agoThey could've, but people and politics are hard and they didn't. It is what it is, can't change the past. We win or we learn.
- suddenlybananas 2mo ago
- marcosdumay 2mo agoWhat is not on the title: For an entire year, that year being 2025. Also, yes, absolute generation from fossil fuels is declining quickly. The total generation is changing way more slowly than that share.
- novaRom 2mo agoBut so is German industry - every day in the news either insolvency or workforce reduction and moving production to Eastern Europe - main reason often stated "expensive Energy". I wonder what are the stats for industrial production in 2025 or total energy consumption in Germany?
- Helmut10001 2mo agoYou make it sound like there is a causality here. I would be careful. German GDP is declining for other reasons, not for their commitment to renwables. Also, by all measures, living in Germany still means you get one of the most comfortable, secure and free lives on earth. I wouldn't give up on Germany so fast. They still know how to work and often work, even if there is no reason to work (i.e looking at their current regulations, which rather motivate you to _not_ work).
- VorpalWay 2mo agoArguably Sweden (and possibly the other Nordic countries too) are even better places to live (or at least equally good). Well, as long as you can stand the climate and the lack of sun in the winter. We have right to roam in nature here, which is quite rare across the world (and even compared to the few other countries that have something similar, the Swedish variant is stronger). I wouldn't trade that for anything.
- puchatek 2mo agoI don't think the comment above meant to say there's nothing better than Germany. Instead the claim was that 1) Germany's decline is not due to renewables and 2) despite the decline it's still a pretty good place to live.
- ginkgotree 2mo agoNow they just gotta get the good ole DB to run on time.
- GuB-42 2mo agoI have heard this news many times, technically not wrong, but each time with a different metric. This time it is production over a year. It reminds me of the Voyager probes that left the solar system half a dozen times, each time taking a different definition of what marks the edge of the solar system. Anyways, we are now getting to sensible metrics, which is good.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- hvb2 2mo agoIt's the sporadic good news item in a sea of bad? Moving away from fossil fuels is a big task, these are the first signs that things are happening.
- baxtr 2mo agothere is far more good news than bad news, but unfortunately the human mind reacts much more intensely to the latter.
- GuB-42 2mo agoCertainly not in news (as in newspapers). There is a reason we are saying "no news is good news". And it is not just because of the negativity bias. Things that work as they should don't make the news. I mean, take Ukraine and Poland, both European countries of a similar scale, one is at war, the other is doing well, guess the one that makes the news. I'd say the only consistent supplier of good news is science and technology (with maybe a 50/50 ratio of good to bad), and sports (for the winning team). Geopolitics is almost exclusively bad news, economics is mostly bad, the good news are often agreements that conclude a stream of bad news, such as wars and economic crisis, and then we stop talking about the thing, because it now works as it should. And then, there are crimes and disasters, which are obviously bad.
- emsign 2mo agoThat's totally fine with me. Each time it's an opportunity to be happy and proud.
- lisenKaci 2mo agodoes natural gas count as fossil fuels here?
- eigenspace 2mo agoyes.
- Hnrobert42 2mo agoI'm confused by the US conservatives' full court press for fossil fuels and against wind/solar. I believe it's mostly about protecting existing money/power structures, but I don't really know. I mean, where does all Trump's energy on this topic come from? Is it owning the libs or courting donors or the Heritage Foundation/AEI? If it's really about protecting fossil fuel wealth, is there a long-term plan or are they just juicing quarterly earnings as long as they can? Is there a serious belief that wind/solar is a fad? This isn't the kind of thought that begets rational discussion, but if you can avoid cynicism and sarcasm, I am curious to hear what the smart people of HN think.
- adaml_623 2mo agoI know what you mean. You'd think nationalists would want to put the citizens of their country first but nope they can all go and get cancer from coal power plants.
- bluGill 2mo agoI'm confused too, and I often self-identify as conservative. Part of the problem is you think there is unity in any large movement. There is not, only tiny movements with no political power have unity. There are multiple factions is always the right answer and you have to understand each. As a short cut, many (often the majority) are willing to live with those in their midst but don't actually care. Fossil fuel companies have long supported conservative positions. This is their payback, they get support back. Many do see renewables as the "left", and so they don't care to think, they just oppose anything the left does. (you often see the reverse)
- loudmax 2mo agoI think this is more about tribalism than conservatism. There's nothing inherently "conservative" about opposing renewable energy. The political movement that's currently leading the Republican party shouldn't be understood as "conservative". At least, certainly not in terms of the conservative values of respect for the rule of law, traditional mores and institutions, or personal integrity. The populist energy that passes for "conservative" is reactionary and much more concerned with scoring points on social media than governing sensibly. To be fair, the populist left is also ascendant with its own set of bad ideas.
- lorreyfum 2mo agoNow we know why El Niño is particularly bad this year, all those windmills slowing down the jet stream.
- tomasphan 2mo agoI love renewables, but the problem with solar is the lack of inertia (literally). Big spinning masses like steam turbines have an easier time staying on network frequency. Wind turbines better than solar of course so I hope we continue to have diversity there.
- klysm 2mo agoThankfully this is one of the easiest limitations to get around technically. Grid forming inverters and inertia markets make this pretty straightforward to solve IMO. Storage is the key thing we need to solve
- jillesvangurp 2mo agoBatteries paired with the right inverters solve this fully. Buys you enough time for powering up backup power in the form of a good old steam turbine (gas or coal powered). No need to keep spinning if they aren't needed. The good news is that batteries are deployed at almost the same scale as solar now on grids world wide. They can respond in more or less real-time to huge fluctuations in supply and demand and smooth out peaks and dips in those.
- bob1029 2mo agoThe other thing that massive synchronous machines provide is fault current handling. A turbine hall can eat 10x rated current for several cycles. Semiconductor junctions cannot tolerate anything remotely close to this.
- kachnuv_ocasek 2mo agoThankfully, synchronous condensers, flywheels and other fossil-free technologies exist.
- frollogaston 2mo agoThis is interesting. They can't make AC inverters more reliable than spinning motors? I thought the problem was more about supply not matching demand quickly enough.
- tschellenbach 2mo agoSome good data on this topic: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions
- jimt1234 2mo agoThank goodness the energy policy of the US is being dictated by a single, highly intelligent man that isn't falling for the clean energy hoax, a man who consistently puts the interests of the people over his own interests. It's sad that the rest of the world is falling for this scam. </sarcasm; gosh, i hope it was obvious>
- jqpabc123 2mo agoCheap, renewable energy offers a competitive advantage to manufacturing and AI. This undoubtedly explains why the current US administration is openly hostile to it.
- softwaredoug 2mo agoThe next frontier will be meat consumption. Particularly red meat. A single 1/4 beef hamburger emits 7-12 kg of carbon[1]. Compared to ~1.5kg of carbon driving your car 3 miles[2]. Not telling you to go full vegetarian, but I'm personally far less interested in a beef product unless you're going to guarantee its an extremely expert prepared steak. Most beef is mediocre. 1 - https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food 2 - https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-t...
- threatripper 2mo agoHow many miles does the burger drive my car? Not to question your numbers but they lack context. Also, it would be good for nature if there were fewer or no humans on this planet. But then there would be no human here to enjoy nature.
- alpineman 2mo agoSorry but this is just such an ignorant comment. You really need to read up on how agriculture contributes to global warming and loss of land/deforestation. What do you think cows eat, air?
- puchatek 2mo agoIf only they ate the thing that is the intuitive answer to your question! It would be bad enough with all the burping and farting but at least we would not destroy the rain forest so we could produce more soy for fodder
- recursive 2mo agoBurgers don't drive cars. People drive cars, and people eat burgers. Is that the context you were looking for? We've identified two ways to reduce carbon production. 1) reduce production per human. 2) reduce humans. Only the first one is being argued for here. Conflating it with the second is just a confusion.
- greenleafone7 2mo agoBreaking news: "Wind and solar overtake fossil fuels in <insert_European_country> for the first time" for the 10th time this year. Also on other unrelated news German economy is rocketing to the bottom, their industry is dying with thousands of layoffs, closing factories, and complains on energy prices and they can't even maintain their rail and road networks for the first time since forever. The signs of decline are not even signs anymore they are bright neon signs. But at least we are taxing cows farting. While china is steamrolling ahead and we are regulated to death by bureaucrats.
- zingar 2mo agoWhat’s your point in relation to this article?
- nxm 2mo agoWhile achieving renewable "success", the domestic manufacturing industry has been decimated/made uncompetitive. Great news for China on the green success!
- emsign 2mo agoWhich is in part the fault of the industry itself! There's a high degree of arrogance in German management. Especially when it comes to China. The German car industry's refusal to go all in on BEV is a prime example how this arrogance lead to losing to the Chinese who now make better cars than Germany. And this wasn't the first time German industry lost to China due to their own arrogance and being stuck in the past. They always treated China as an export market instead of a seriuous competitor. Same with Eastern Europe. People always blame German politics, but German management is as responsible if not more responsible for the decline. They simply made bad management decisions for decades and they didn't see the future coming.
- leonidasrup 2mo agoLong time ago German car industry's decided that they need not to manufacture the most important component of EVs - batteries in Europe, that they can always buy the cheaply in Asia. "The world's largest automotive supplier has decided against producing its own battery cells despite calls from EU politicians to do exactly that. Bosch said the investment would probably never pay off." https://www.dw.com/en/bosch-says-battery-cells-are-too-expensive-too-risky/a-42774651 https://www.dw.com/en/bosch-says-battery-cells-are-too-expen... The importance of BEV for China goes well beyond long-term concerns for climate change. For China the most important are the immediate geopolitical aspects of BEV. Every Chinese BEV in China is driving using domestic electricity and is not dependent on imported oil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malacca_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malacca_dilemma "The Malacca dilemma is a strategic vulnerability for the People's Republic of China due to its heavy reliance on the strait of Malacca, a critical maritime choke point connecting the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea." "The United States is viewed within Chinese strategic analysis as a potential threat to maritime energy flows through the Strait of Malacca. In the event of a conflict, particularly over Taiwan, the United States could interdict oil shipments to China by disrupting maritime routes. China has expressed concern that U.S. naval forces operating near the Strait of Malacca could obstruct critical petroleum shipments, effectively cutting off vital imports. U.S. maritime strategy has included options for restricting China's access to key sea lanes through the use of attack submarines and surface ships."
- mikaeluman 2mo agoThe headline should state this is about electricity generation. If you compare e.g. with a country like Sweden or France they have been free from fossil fuels for electricity since the build outs in the 70s-80s. Also Germany is an importer of significant electricity (e.g nuclear power from France). But due to a stagnant economy and no increase in electricity demand - yes, I guess this milestone is now passed...
- perrygeo 2mo agoTrue. Less than 40% of the world's fossil fuel energy goes to generating electricity. The rest goes to transportation, industrial processes, material feedstock, and direct heating - which are not accounted for in this metric! "Renewable alternatives cover half of 40% of fossil fuel demand" would be more accurate. Still a win, but it's not "overtaking fossil fuels" by any definition.
- sajithdilshan 2mo agoThe total carbon emission of Germany in 2024 as a percentage of whole world is 1.5% (https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by-country/ https://www.worldometers.info/co2-emissions/co2-emissions-by...). Even if Germany goes carbon neutral tomorrow, it wouldn't make any difference on global climate, but there would be millions of Germans on Bürgergeld (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BCrgergeld https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BCrgergeld)
- bhawika_kaushik 2mo ago[flagged]
- MetroWind 2mo agoSo... can we expect they all have AC in 2027?
- freemo716 2mo agobut electric is still expensive for electric cars, comparing to Turkey. in Germany it's 0.40-0.50 Euro/kwh, in Turkey it's 0.2 Euro.
- sandalwarrior 2mo agoThat's because Germany doesn't need so much energy anymore. The heavy industry is disrupting, instead you get a climate anxiety and migration industries.