No one claims that. What is claimed and what is actually correct is that Germany exports more electricity than it imports.
> They in return, being annoyed by repeatedly having their grid brought on the brink of collapse
Contrary to popular myths the German electricity grid is one of the most stable in the world.
https://energyathaas.files.wordpress.com/2015/06/gt.jpg
> Excess energy can’t be saved
There isn't much excess electricity from renewable energy. What we have are is a situation where coal / nuclear are exporting their electricity and are not willing or able to reduce their energy production enough.
Note also exporting and importing electricity is nothing bad. We will see much more electricity exchange in the coming decades within the EU. The reason is that the EU is pushing an EU-wide electricity market with competition and wants to get rid of country-local closed energy markets with monopolies or oligopolies.
Better adjust to that.
> but none of the German consumers will get these prices on their energy bill
Check out industry prices - they are consumers of electricity, too.
> surpass any goalsso far
Example, published in 2012:
http://www.renewable-energy-concepts.com/fileadmin/user_uplo...
It says: 'Bis spätestens zum Jahr 2020 soll der Anteil der erneuerbaren Energien an der Stromversorgung mindestens 35 Prozent betragen.'
This has already happened in 2018.
Your first link is just one jpg of a table on a blog of a progressive institute. The second one just a broad publication in German by the the German environmental ministry. Should I refer to its imprint as proof?
Then you make un-based broad statements and label critics as adherents to mythical beliefs
> Contrary to popular myths the German electricity grid is one of the most stable in the world.
To which I'd say, look no further than 10 January 2019 when Germany's policy of legally enforcing right of way for renewable energies almost brought down the whole of Europe's electricity grid. [1]
Furthermore the whole year of 2003 the German energy net authority had to perform 2 redispatches to avert a blackout. 2010 they had to perform 290, while in 2017 third quarter alone they had to perform 1.013 [2]
No one claims [that Germany is exporting more energy than it is consuming]. What is claimed and what is actually correct is that Germany exports more electricity than it imports.
Thats a non sequitur.
> This has already happened in 2018.
Clearly, your statement of the surpassing of "any goals so far" can't be based on that one data point out of a 140 page document? Or does this mean this was the only goal of the Energiewende? ?
[1] https://derstandard.at/2000096185439/Europas-Stromnetz-stand...
[2] https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/All... (page 32)
Is 'progressive' a problem for you? You can easily google for SAIDI and SAIFI numbers yourself. They will look the same.
> The second one just a broad publication in German by the the German environmental ministry. Should I refer to its imprint as proof?
A proof for what? I showed you a publication where the ministry communicated its goal for the share of renewable electricity in 2020. Higher up we already established that the number has been reached in 2018.
> To which I'd say, look no further than 10 January 2019 when Germany's policy of legally enforcing right of way for renewable energies almost brought down the whole of Europe's electricity grid. [1]
Which is factually wrong. Seems like you are not able to read the German text.
It hasn't brought down the net at all, not in Germany and not in the rest of Europe and it wasn't even near that.
The reason was a combination of data problem and a demand increase because of two power plants were going offline. Nothing to do with the 'Energiewende'.
https://www.montelnews.com/de/story/datenfehler-bedarfsspitz...
If you read the above statements, it was far from bringing down the whole of Europe's grid - as you have claimed - even the French operator denies this. The whole of Europe is actually very large and includes countries like Ireland, Finland, Greece, ... none of which would have seen an effect. It's just a sensational headline.
> Thats a non sequitur.
What?
> Clearly, your statement of the surpassing of "any goals so far" can't be based on that one data point out of a 140 page document?
If you cite me, then cite me correctly. I said: 'The share of electricity from renewable energy has surpassed any goals so far.' I was explicitly talking about the goals for the share of electricity as an example and then gave you an example for that.
Your statement was this: 'until now the government was great at missing even the most conservative goals on basically anything'
I gave you an example where it wasn't missing its goals.
That was always the case. It's nothing new.
That means also that each change is difficult, because there are established players who are defending their business. In nuclear power industries we have seen that, because it tends to create very large industrial conglomerates who are heavily interlinked with government. There we see then easily an abuse of that power. A part of the Energiewende is about opening up closed energy markets which were shared with only a handful of (often state owned) companies, make it accessible for new providers, create competition and decentralize it.
He made two basic claims, but your post contains a plethora of critical responses to things he never said.
I'm just gonna give you sources to support/correct his two original points and ignore your gibberish/rant.
> The nuclear reactors were actually not 'perfectly modern'.
Which they are not. The newest reactors in Germany began construction in 1982 [1], and most of the ones already shut down were old second generation nuclear technology [2][3]
> The share of electricity from renewable energy has surpassed any goals so far.
This is wrong afaik, since Germany isn't on track to meet it's own goals, but is just ahead of the EU's goals. [4]
[1]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Kernreaktoren_in_Deu...
[2]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Kernkraftwerke
[3]: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernkraftwerk#Generationen_von...
[4]: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2015/11/germany-...
What is missing for me is I can't source a current (~2017 or 2018) timeseries on German Energy/Capita use, which is a very important piece of the puzzle. Even if I could, I can't check sources because of the language barrier, so I wouldn't really be able to argue using it. If the per capita number has gone up then the Energiewende is very impressive. If it has gone down a lot, a failure. If it is middling, success is a political question.
The data will get out eventually. A lot of the interim reporting seems to combine spin and evidence-that-isn't really-evidence like negative power prices (which don't really say if 'things are working or not').
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...
That makes little sense. A goal of German energy politics is to reduce energy per capita use.
Really? That sounds remarkably foolish; I'm surprised there are riots in France but not Germany. Is there some sort of justification for such a damaging policy?
The only way to reduce per capita energy consumption is to ban people from doing things, or tax them until the poor can't afford it any more. An economy won't leave energy untapped because people are using it more efficiently. Energy is very valuable.
Particularly in Germany's case, if per capita energy use is dropping, it is quite likely it is because people can't afford to buy some of Europe's most expensive power. That tends to upset.
The way to reduce energy consumption is to a have a more efficient infrastructure and more efficient consumer devices. In the private sector, public sectors and the industry.
Increasing 'efficiency' is a huge goal. This starts with using less primary energy for the production of the same amount of electricity, using so-far wasted energy (like heat from power plants), using less stand-by energy, increasing transport efficiency, use of less energy-intensive production processes in industry, ...
However, if you just increase energy efficiency, energy consumption will not go down. If it was worth your time to get X energy to produce Y results, and now X energy produces Y+1 results, it isn't particularly obvious to wind back X. It makes more sense to keep X constant and enjoy the greater results. If you could justify using X before, it is even easier to justify it now.
If you want to reduce energy consumption without compromising living standards, then you will indeed need to increase energy efficiency, but simultaneously you are going to need very firm measures (bans, punitive taxes, etc) to stop people just enjoying having more stuff for the same amount of effort. I think that is a mistake myself, and likely to lead to very angry voters.
There were predictions years ago that we wouldn't need to work because we would be so productive by this century. They got the productivity increases right, but radically underestimated how much people value leisure vs having more stuff. We still work a 5 day week, despite the fact that we just don't need to do that to maintain a lifestyle our great grandparents had.
That's where the increase in costs (or the competition from cheaper producers) comes into play. The production costs are increasing and producers are keen to improve efficiency, since it is one way to lower the pressure on production cost.
There are also lots of energy markets where the overall demand is limited.
> reduce energy consumption without compromising living standards
Twenty years ago I had a workstation which consumed 1.5KW/h. Now my workstation consumes 0.1KW/h while being 1000 times faster. I have several other computers around me (mostly with low-power CPUs) which each consume around 0.005KW/h - while each is much faster than the workstation of twenty years ago.
My LED lights are as bright as light before and more flexible - while using 1/5ths of the electricity.
From all I have seen as data, the GDP/capita has been increasing, while energy consumption has been reduced. I don't see my living standards being degraded.
> We still work a 5 day week
You maybe, not me. I'm also travelling a lot less than I used to do - which is alone an increase in my living standard.
Per capita energy consumption has been dropping in Europe, but also in North America over the past few years. Not aware of any bans or unaffordability issues there:
https://www.google.com/publicdata/explore?ds=d5bncppjof8f9_&...
And the US EIA absolutely claims energy efficiency is part of the reason:
Well, crude oil prices went from $35 -> $70 around 2005 and have generally been floating around there since, with short periods of time (a year or two) where they drop down [0], coal did something similar from $50 -> $80 [1]. In the US, coal use for electricity immediately started dropping off, and Natural Gas has been replacing capacity [2]. There was a 5 year period where gas (ie, car fuel) prices were just out of control, and a long period of time where they were just high.
Most of the US's energy is sourced from petroleum and coal [3, 4]. I'd say there is some evidence here that the drop in per capita use was more due to the price rising by a very large margin than some sort of efficiency gain, and the EIA article you reference is, in my view, somewhat optimistic if they think that sort of price movement doesn't cause people to change their lifestyles. This all times in roughly with when per capita energy use started to level off then fall. I'd suggest that although cheap natural gas has absorbed some of the shock, there is evidence of cost pressure if you care to look.
[0] https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-cha... [1] https://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=coal-austr... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:US_Electricity_by_type.pn... [3] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=10 [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Energy_Flow_US_2017.png [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_the_United_States#Su...
AFAIK what proponents of the German „Energiewende“ are often referring to are sometimes just superficial headlines or positive datapoints cherry picked out of a study that itself draws negative conclusions or fails to come to a postive result.
The most prominent in the last years were those PR stunts, that claimed Germany is exporting more energy than it is consuming. Which frankly adds injury to insult. Because the only reason Germany is doing that is that otherwise its energy grid would collapse.
Renewables (in Germany) produce energy in fluctuating rates and aren‘t suited to serve the base load. Excess energy can’t be saved so it has to be (by law) dumped somewhere, which usually means our neighbor countries. They in return, being annoyed by repeatedly having their grid brought on the brink of collapse by us started to install equipment on their borders to basically „emergency stop“ these shenanigans and cut-off our grid if they have to.
Apart from the diplomatic „upside“ another side-effect said PR stunt is spin-doctoring is the fact that everytime we have to dump energy the prices go down. They even go negative. That sounds nice, but none of the German consumers will get these prices on their energy bill (if they did, they might increase consumption in those times, alleviating the grid’s pain...).
It effectively means, that Germany pays other countries to take their (heavily tax-payer funded) excess energy. Which alas, gives us said PR stunt.
Anyways, I honestly would be interested in your data that proves the „surpassing [of] any goals so far“.