4 Reasons Why Germany Is A Renewable Energy Success Story
A few weeks ago, I visited Intersolar North America, an exhibition for photovoltaics, solar thermal technology, and solar thermal architecture. The exhibition, which was previously only held in Germany, had an understandably large German presence (including a large beer garden). During my time there, I stopped by the German Energy Agency booth, and was quite impressed with what I found. So, without further ado, here are 4 reasons why we should be paying a whole lot of attention to the Germany renewable energy market.
1. Germany has the world’s largest wind power sector— but had barely any notable wind power at all 16 years ago.
With over 20,600 MW of installed capacity, Germany is the world’s wind power leader. And they accomplished this feat pretty quickly, having had less than 100 MW in 1992. The second place wind leader, Spain, only has approximately 12,000 MW of capacity.
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2. The country has the world’s second largest solar power market, despite having extremely cloudy weather.
Germany comes in as number 2 for solar power, with 750 MW of peak capacity as of 2006. However, it is far and away the European leader for photovoltaic capacity, with a capacity of 3063 MW. Additionally, the world’s largest solar cell producer (Q-Cells) is located there. Oh, and the country also has the largest solar thermal market in Europe.
3. Over 214,000 people work in the German domestic renewable energy industry.
With 2.3 million renewable energy workers worldwide, Germany once again takes the cake as a pioneering country. Last year, German companies accounted for 38 percent of the total wind energy market.
4. They have progressive renewable energy laws.
The German government has just agreed on a new climate change legislative package with the goal of reducing CO2 emissions up to 36 percent by 2020. German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel calls it the biggest climate change package in the world.
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Wow! I had no idea that Germany was so progressive.
“Over 214,000 people work in the German domestic renewable energy industry.” — That’s incredible; nearly 10% of the world’s entirety.
The US would do well to follow Germany’s lead. I think it is important for individuals to support businesses efforts to ‘go green.’ For example, http://www.simplestop.net stops your postal junk mail and benefits the environment.
The entire reason to “Why Germany Is A Renewable Energy Success Story” is #4. The first three reasons are just statistics. The German government highly subsidizes solar energy. Without their subsidies solar energy would not be as economical and they wouldn’t be the solar success they are today.
Even if I was okay with the idea of subsidies we couldn’t afford to do the same.
On reddit there was some discussion about the total share of renewable energy compared to nuclear energy.
The pdf below shows some official numbers (in german).
According to this, renewable energy in 2007 accounted for 6.6% of the total consumption while NE did for 11.1%
http://bmwi.de/BMWi/Redaktion/PDF/P-R/primaerenergieverbrauch-2007-grafiken,property=pdf,bereich=bmwi,sprache=de,rwb=true.pdf
Martin K,
1) what would exactly mean “we”? For the purpose of this reply, I will assume USA (most of English-speaker internet surfers are from there). Anyhow the reasoning applies for any country.
2) There is not such a country that could not afford supporting the use of solar and wind power… Even developing countries support that! Production of energy-on-the-spot has very limited investments. In many African countries - for example - use of solar ovens have been supported with risible investments. Local production of electrical power via wind turbines or solar panels in those countries has turned in being even cheaper than building from the scratch a power-grid infrastructure.
3) There is a difference between “subsidising” (a permanent alteration of production costs or purchase price for defending an unsustainable economy that otherwise would collapse) and “supporting the investments” (incentives for promoting the quicker adoption of a new sustainable technology, that is however the future we all will end up to).
4) Even if there were no difference between the two, the role of a government is precisely making sure that economy goes where citizens need it. We need a sustainable planet, not more Exxon gas stations. Apart from Georgie W., we all understand that.
5) Ever heard about “full cost accountability”? When this model has applied to other environmental issues it gives a different insight about many things: a CFC-propelled can of hairspray, for example, costed various hundreds of dollars, to humanity. Are you sure you could “afford” that? Do you know which is the “full cost” of using oil when viable alternatives do exist?
6) Oil economy is far more subsidised than renewable energy one. To my knowledge, no country has kept bombing another country since 1992 spending hundreds of trillions of dollars (of citizens’ money) just to have control over the cost of solar or wind energy. Contrarily, I can think to at least one that did that for oil… can you?
7) Statistics (sorry… “just statistics”) are a way to look and understand the world. The “just statistics” about Germany, for example, says they have good governance and citizens that make good use of their votes. What does the “just statistics” says about the citizens of your country?
My advice: read more, think more, vote better.
Achtung ! All other world leaders !
Statistics are certainly an important part of understanding the world, but it is important to maintain a questioning attitude. When reading or listening to the sales materials from the “renewable” energy industry, pay attention to the fact that they nearly always talk about “capacity” rather than “production”.
They also measure capacity in a rather interesting way, especially for solar systems. The nameplate capacity standard for the industry is to report the theoretical production at noon on a clear day near the equator. In other words, solar systems are almost NEVER producing the amount of power that their name plate says they can produce.
Wind turbine manufacturers are not quite as bad, but they are also guilty of favoring capacity numbers rather than production numbers. Most people do not understand that the power production is proportional to the cube of the wind speed. When there is a nice 5 knot (2.5 m/s) breeze that feels good, the power output from a turbine is 1/8th as much as it is when the wind is blowing at a more intense 10 knots (5 m/s) and 1/64th as much as when the wind is blowing at the normal turbine design speed of 20 knots (10 m/s).
Just remember, solar, wind, and biofuels are often being pushed by some very large corporate interests (GE, Siemens, BP, ADM) whose sales teams are driven by the very same kinds of incentives as the ones that drive those evil fossil fuel salesmen.
Germans… simply the best
I have a great deal of respect for them and their achievements. They had to pay a lot of money for the first and second world war and still they managed to evolve! They have some of the best (if not the best) roads in Europe. They are clean and civilized, smart… yeah… as I said before, I respect them 
Mac,
Good points. I really appreciate #3. Why are Americans (I assume Martin is American) so afraid of government subsidies? The government’s role is to spend tax dollars to make our lives better. I’d rather they spend our money on clean energy. I think $500,000,000,000 would have bought a lot of solar cells and wind turbines.
[...] 4 Reasons Why Germany Is A Renewable Energy Success Story [...]
Martin K, watch your tone, bud. That’s my sister who you’re talking to. Notice how everyone else that posted was respectful? A post like yours is what makes Americans look bad. We already have a bad enough stereotype.