Comments on: Clean-Energy-Loving Germany Increasingly Exporting Electricity to Nuclear-Heavy France

By: Marcacci Communications

Marcacci Communications — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 18:52:44 +0000

[…] offshore wind, solar photovoltaic (PV), and biomass. Even though price shocks from the country’s shift away from nuclear power have rattled funding sources, E&Y predicts offshore wind and solar PV will continue powering […]

By: Nuclear Power: The Dream that Failed « Climate Denial Crock of the Week

Nuclear Power: The Dream that Failed « Climate Denial Crock of the Week — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 03:08:13 +0000

[…] power. Additionally, German electricity exports to Europe’s nuclear power house France actually increased in […]

By: Jean-Marc Desperrier

Jean-Marc Desperrier — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 20:00:00 +0000

The German Solar has not such a good value for exportation to France, because the peak demand in France is at 19h, when there is 0 production from solar in Germany. The imports in the recent cold weather, needed because France stopped building new nuclear plants 10 years ago but the increase in consumption didn’t stop, were mostly coming from fossil power.

Even on the 8/2/2012, 19h, at top demand level of 102GW, 72GW of it were coming from local CO2 free nuclear & hydro. Still cleaner than many other countries. Probably some of the import from Switzerland was also CO2 free hydro. Almost none of the import from Germany was CO2 free, since there was no solar, and almost no wind on that day (low temp coming from Siberia also means very dry weather and about no wind).

Given the number of fossil plants in Germany, including a large number of coal plants, this is probably still less than the average percentage of fossil fuel in electric energy production in Germany.

Also meanwhile Germans were also having a cold weather and using a lot of gas to heat their homes with 100% of the energy producing CO2, that why the electricity consumption wasn’t that high. Given how expensive electricity is for home consumers, no way they’d use electric heating instead of gas, and electricity is getting more expensive, pushing them even more toward gas.

By: Matthias

Matthias — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 22:23:00 +0000

Just to clarify the claim that Germany supposedly had trouble meeting electricity demand during the cold weather in Jan-Feb 2012: It wasn’t true, not on a single day, as this german-language article on http://www.iwr.de explains (google Deutschland exportierte ständig Strom – kein Krisenstab). What actually happened was that not renewables-prone Germany, but nuclear-reliant France was in big trouble, needing german electricity to make ends meet. At the height of the cold-weather wave on 8 Feb, Germany exported 2,900 MW of electricity while France imported from every single neighbor country around it, including Germany with 761 MW, imports into France on that day totalling some 7,000 MW.

By: Solar Energy in Germany (VIDEO)

Solar Energy in Germany (VIDEO) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 13:26:07 +0000

[…] a deadly cold wave brought the fossil- and nuclear-dominated energy system of France close to collapse, German PV solar kept many gas- and oil-fired power plants offline, which significantly lowered the […]

By: 12 Years Later - Solar Energy in Germany (video) - CleanTechnica

12 Years Later - Solar Energy in Germany (video) - CleanTechnica — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 13:21:14 +0000

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 21:22:00 +0000

Could you provide the links?

By: Jorg Lalk

Jorg Lalk — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 08:56:00 +0000

Your article is in direct conflict with figures coming out of the German Statistical Office as well as figures released by both Bloomberg and Business Monitor International (BMI), all of these being highly credited for the accuracy of their figures. Would you care to comment on these?

By: Solar Power to the Rescue as German Sun Bails French Nukes « Climate Denial Crock of the Week

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:40:22 +0000

[…] Zachary Shahan in CleanTechnica: […]

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 19:23:00 +0000

Oh yes, I see! Now this comment makes much more sense

By: Érico Martins

Érico Martins — Sat, 11 Feb 2012 14:20:00 +0000

Breitbart, the pathological liar (Shirley Sherrod, ACORN videos, etc.) now has a “news“ site!!

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:59:00 +0000

Perhaps due to even colder weather? Or less sunshine?

By: N. White

N. White — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 22:52:00 +0000

I have heard other reports to the contrary. The url below indicates that Germany has had difficulty supplying all of its own power due to recent weather, without even talking about exports!

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.f8382debfb716340b7f1999eebbef0ff.491&show_article=1

By: zed

zed — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 05:09:00 +0000

“Additionally, electricity imports to France have been increasing!”
didn’t you mean “electricity exports to France” ?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 04:23:00 +0000

Nukes can’t be brought back online that fast, so instead they’re relying on fossil fuels.

“The country’s four main power operators requested the reserve generator at a coal-powered plant in southern Germany and two plants in Austria be activated, the regional environment ministry in the southern state of Baden-Wuerttemberg said.”
http://www.france24.com/en/20120209-germany-forced-tap-electricity-reserves

I don’t have figures for the last couple of months, but from April 2011 through November, Germany’s net exported power has been about 11,000 GW-h less than it used to be (an average of a couple of GW).

Normally, Germany has net exports from October to April, then runs about even from May to September. I’m not clear on why; I’d guess that peak demand is in the evening in winter, so why don’t they have power to spare in summer?

https://www.entsoe.eu/resources/data-portal/exchange/

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:36:00 +0000

I predict as the second generation solar comes online in the next few years, that nuclear power plants won’t even be able to sell enough electricity to pay to shut themselves down.

By: Zachary Shahan

Zachary Shahan — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:07:00 +0000

Hmm, I haven’t seen that, only this info on how everything has been going fine and it even had the electricity needed to export to France.

By: Taylor Reese

Taylor Reese — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:19:00 +0000

I’ve just read a brief RT report that claims the following:

The cold-related surge in electricity demand has prompted Germany’s network operators to call upon nuclear power plants left in reserve as a “preventative measure.” (end quote)

After reading your piece again, I wasn’t sure if this contradicted what you said or not. Could you clarify this for me?