It's not a "scam". Electricity is fungible, there's no such thing as "dirty" electrons. Everything feeds into the same grid, and the math works out. Germany buys a ton of hydroelectric power from Norway, and generates its own wind and solar. What more do you want, exactly?

Could you please -- by way of the principle of charity -- assume that readers here know what electricity is?

1) It does not help the German people if green energy is generated in Norway or someone puts up a solar panel in the Sahara if they get to breathe emissions from coal power plants.

2) Any overly complex scheme is likely to be gamed. Any German household can order "Öko-Strom". I don't believe for a second that enough real "Öko-Strom" is available to fulfil that demand in a legitimate manner.

In (1) you assume that people buy green energy mainly or to a large extent to reduce the emissions they personally suffer from. Have you considered that a big reason for many people to buy green energy might just be to provide incentives for green energy production in order to combat emissions globally without regard for whether they personally benefit from it? If everyone consumes energy "covered" by certificates, this increases viability of producing green energy.

In (2) you say that the scheme is likely to be gamed. Can you elaborate on how that would look like? Does this "Occam's razor" necessarily mean that only simple laws are effective?

Also in (2) you claim that there is not enough real green energy available to satisfy the demand. This is obviously true but this means that the demand creates an incentive for companies to produce green energy wherever possible.

Overall what this system really provides is an option for consumers to optionally subsidize green energy producing companies and so far I have not really heard of any concrete case in which this system has been gamed. Do you know any?

I don't feel like discussing this any further after the usual stupid down-voting and rationalizations.

Go and continue to believe that the world is just, no gaming of the system occurs, as clueless and highly paid A12-A16 civil servants [1] have told you in school.

[1] German teachers are paid well in return for their indoctrination.

So, basically you believe that people are gaming the system but you have no examples of how this happens or which companies might be doing this?

Well, if the down-voters are unable to operate Google-search (as expected), here is one of the first links:

http://www.energieverbraucher.de/de/gruener-strom__377/

So now after 3 layers of us trying to coax you into giving us a little bit more concrete detail on your argument, you link an article in German which a lot of people here cannot read?

Anyway, the article's argument is that the certificates for renewable energy are created in e.g. Norway and Switzerland where it is easy to produce cheap hydropower which cannot be transported to Germany. Meanwhile the Norwegian and Swiss do not buy energy with certificates because they "know" that their energy is clean.

This is indeed true and a valid argument. However Norway and Switzerland produce only a finite amount of these certificates. If demand for certified green energy does not exceed this supply then this is simply a sign that not enough people are willing to pay extra for certified green energy which is regrettable but not a fault of this system.

Many teachers here on HN who think they are programmers while they're only "Lehramt".

I'm not surprised by the low quality of discussion.

I don't think it is scammed in a way you suggest in (2). However, there is indeed the issue that buying green energy doesn't necessarily change anything. Existing green energy will simply be sold as green rather than normal energy. That's why you have several utilities (e.g., Greenpeace's own) that guarantee to build new green plants in line with their own demand

It's not as dubious as you may think. Unless they are actively running their own power plants they have to source the energy from somewhere and they're naturally limited by whatever suppliers feed into the grid. As long as they offset the energy they consume with renewable energy being produced, they're net neutral.

That's quite a big if. Okay, under the assumption that the energy industry is always honest and never games the system, we have true green energy.

I don't understand why people here try to explain very basic things that just don't work out in the real world as they would in a 9th grade math textbook.

I was arguing based on the assumption that they are indeed doing what you described. RECs would be regulated and "not being honest" in that case would constitute actual fraud.

If it's just a public promise, sure, I wouldn't trust them either, but even then German consumer protection laws would at least require them to either keep that promise or drop that claim (and pay a fine for anti-competitive practices).

> I don't understand why people here try to explain very basic things that just don't work out in the real world as they would in a 9th grade math textbook.

Then please explain to us, what they taught you in 9th grade. Also, why are you hiding behind a throwaway if you are so sure of your points?

They taught me that there's an extraneous comma in your first sentence.