Germany was at the forefront of the European push for renewables, though. Sure, they never produced as much electricity from renewable sources as countries with really great hydroelectric resources, but those countries' experience isn't that relevant to everyone else since the countries which could do that generally did before renewable energy even became fashionable in the first place. In terms of wind and solar they were way out in front of everyone else (they apparently had the highest installed capacity of solar in the world for a while, and they still have the third-highest wind turbine capacity behind only the much larger USA and China).