Talk:Solar power in Germany

Untitled

The table: Other notable photovoltaic (PV) power plants was linked to http://www.pvresources.com/en/top50pv.php

which nowhere has the power production data listed in the table. It only has the MWp.

---> Someone should probably delete the table since its not sourced. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.14.218.64 (talk) 21:29, 23 January 2019 (UTC)

Section "Potential"

It is hard to believe that by just comparing sun hours one can state that Alaska has the same solar potential as the whole of Germany. This seems to stem from comparing Fairbanks with Bremen and Stuttgart. But their are places in the South which are much more sun hours than Stuttgart and this where more installation seem to be because of the better ROI. Then there is the issue of snow which is much less than in Fairbanks which has 150cm per year see DOI: 10.1016/j.solener.2013.02.014. All in all this makes difficult to compare. Then there is another problem as Fairbanks is almost 10 degree more North than the northern most point of Germany. Which makes the angle of the sun far steeper and hence there is less radiation on the flat ground from the sun which makes it problematic for collection. All in all there should be better sources around for the potential. Just stating that is the same as something is not very meaningful and in then case of Alaska very dubious. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:678:6E3:1050:ECDF:D1A4:5A93:A60E (talk) 15:20, 2 October 2020 (UTC)

Commentary/criticisms?...

I'm curious as to why so much money has been invested to install solar panels in a country like Germany which is rather mediocre when it comes to the quantity and intensity of sun. I would think this scale of investment would make a lot more sense in say the Middle East or North Africa, or even in Greece or Italy or Spain.

It seems quite a lot of money has been invested and a massive number of panels installed, but it's still only meeting about 3% of Germany's energy needs, and it looks like it hasn't done very much to reduce the need for installed power from other sources.

Of course if I were to start writing about this in the article itself that would be original research, but I imagine other such commentary must exist, and probably quite some Germans are unhappy that so much money has been spent on something which has borne so little fruit...So it'd be nice to see public reaction/reception discussed more. I imagine most of this is in German though, and I don't speak much German... -Helvetica (talk) 07:25, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Update - found this article: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/solar-subsidy-sinkhole-re-evaluating-germany-s-blind-faith-in-the-sun-a-809439-2.html -Helvetica (talk) 07:38, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Not a very well written article. Basically it says why use solar power - it is too expensive. What it ignores is that as solar power gets cheaper, it becomes the cheapest of all energy. It only becomes cheaper if it is used. That is why it is being developed in Germany, because of the foresight of German politicians. What Germany has proven is that solar works even in a country with not very much sun. That is something that has been very valuable, in itself. Is a feed-in tariff sustainable if everyone installs solar? Yes, but the FIT drops to the retail cost of electricity. Presumably before that happens the learning curve reduces the cost of solar to below grid parity, almost a given. If not, the increased cost of fossil generation still brings the cost below grid parity, just a few years later. See this curve: [1] Solar and wind are also very much complementary - there is not much wind in the summer and not much solar in the winter. A combination makes it a lot easier to meet all of the demand. Apteva (talk) 02:47, 23 June 2012 (UTC)

I'd be tempted to claim the article has heavy solar industry bias, there is a lot of critisism around the world on German PV feed-in tariff system, of course the topic is hot and controversial.--91.152.67.177 (talk) 15:49, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Don't wonder too much about articles by Mr. Neubacher in the 'Spiegel'. He's basically a modern Landsknecht in the information-age class struggle, hiding behind the remaining reputation of the Spiegel as an independent newsmagazine. The whole "PV too expensive" angle is a straw man, no one ever claimed it wasn't expensive, aim of the FIT was to make it cheaper, which succeeded. The day that article was published (16 January 2012) PV in Germany generated over seven GW during midday peak demand. It was the time of PV grid parity with consumer prices and the height of an expensive media campaign to discredit the EEG (FIT scheme) and renewable energy. Later in 2012 came the major political crackdown that cut annual PV deployment in half for 2013. [2] The feed in tariffs system receives "criticism" around the world because it's being copied around the world. 92.200.139.45 (talk) 16:47, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Impact of PV on spot market prices

An article from March of 2012 shows, graphically, how the increase in installed PV has drastically reduced the wholesale cost of electricity in the Gemran spot market (http://www.renewablesinternational.net/the-afternoon-dip/150/537/33320/). I'm struggling with how to explain this in simplified encyclopedia language. Any suggestions? Tom Hopper (talk) 06:16, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

solar records in Germany

Hi guys, today(7th of July) Germany sets new record of 23.9 GW. I wanted to change the old record, but have been lost in updating the reference to the record http://cleantechnica.com/2013/07/07/breaking-germany-sets-solar-power-record-again-23-9-gw/.

reference(15th)

Could you help me to resolve the matter. Thank you

How much from renewable sources by 2050?

The lead paragraph says this:

Germany has a goal of producing 35% of electricity from renewable sources by 2020 and 100% by 2050

Further down the article it says:

The federal government has set a target of 66 GW of installed solar PV capacity by 2030, to be reached with an annual increase of 2.5–3.5 GW, and a goal of 80% of electricity from renewable sources by 2050.

So what is the target for electricity from renewable sources by 2050, 80% or 100%? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.171.3.126 (talk) 16:19, 17 March 2014 (UTC)

According to Renewable Energy Sources Act: "(2) To achieve the purpose set out in subsection (1) above, this Act aims to increase the share of renewable energy sources in electricity supply to at least: 1. 35 percent by no later than 2020; 2. 50 percent by no later than 2030; 3. 65 percent by no later than 2040; and 4. 80 percent by no later than 2050; and to integrate these quantities of electricity in the electricity supply system." – EEG 2012 (German, 2012-08-17), EEG 2012 (English, 2012-01-01); EEG 2014 (German, draft law, 2014-03-04). 84.57.70.124 (talk) 17:24, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Solar power is not actually renewable. They wear out very fast and will have to be completely replaced every 20 years. It's actually very bad for the environment because it uses so much resources for so little power. That's why it's so expensive even with massive subsidy — Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.91.188.153 (talk) 15:39, 29 August 2016 (UTC)

Incorrect statement about nuclear beeing cheapest in terms of LCOE

Because my change to remove this statement was reverted, let me explain my reasoning. The cited source actually talks about current estimates of cost for nuclear and then goes on to talk about LCOE for gas in the next sentence. It does not explictely state something about the LCOE of nuclear and - while I can see that it can read this way - do not think this is what is meant. First, this would be clearly incorrect. LCOE includes captial cost which is high for nuclear (all studies I have seen estimate a relatively high LCOE for nuclear - e.g. higher than wind power). Second, that specific paragraph in the source talks about replacing old (and paid off) nuclear with new plants (e.g. gas). So talking about operating cost for nuclear (and not LCOE) and LCOE of gas makes more sense in this context. In terms of operating cost nuclear is indeed one of the cheapest energy sources, so this statement would also be true. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.32.171.158 (talk) 18:53, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Hi there! Thank you for your feedback. It was me that wrote the original paragraph. I also reverted your removal and actually tried to improve on my wording to be more explicit. Let's compare the article's text with the original source for the "nuclear-LCOE"-statement in question:

Fraunhofer, Electricity production from solar and wind in Germany in 2014, page 7, 2nd bullet-point

The dismantling and alteration of fossil-nuclear power plants (With the phase-out of nuclear energy and the nescessary drop out of brown coal with time, the two cheapest suppliers in the energy mix, according to today's calculations, are leaving the market. Their slow back out with the simultaneous expansion fo RE capacity and stagnationg power consumption reduces the utilization of natural gas plant, leading to higher LCOEs for gas.

Current wording in article's lead section —

These include, adapting the electrical grid, constructing new grid-storage capacity, dismantling and altering fossil and nuclear power plants — the two cheapest sources of electricity by today's LCOE calculations — and to construct a new generation of combined heat and power plants.[7]

I did interpret "according to today's calculations" as "today's LCOE calculations". You're saying that the Fraunhofer institute actually meant to say "by today's operational cost", correct? I don't think this is the case. If you could provide a reliable source that explicitly shows a LCOE for nuclear based on how it's defined by today's standards that is higher than any other source beside lignite, then this could help me understand.

Unfortunately I think the FHI meant to say that "today's" LCOE calculations do not take all cost of nuclear into account (e.g. the cost for long-term storge might be much higher). I also think it's plausible that LOCE for nuclear is low, despite your mentioned high capital cost, as nuclear power plants run for a long time (40 years or more).

Last word: instead of "fossil" the article should better say "brown coal" since natural gas does certainly not belong to the "cheapest energy suppliers". But that's another topic. Pleas let me know what you think! Cheers, -- Rfassbind (talk) 21:14, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Two recent studies about LCOE I have seen include:

http://ec.europa.eu/energy/studies/doc/20141013_subsidies_costs_eu_energy.pdf

and

http://www.lazard.com/PDF/Levelized%20Cost%20of%20Energy%20-%20Version%208.0.pdf

There is also a Wikipedia page Cost_of_electricity_by_source

Martin.uecker (talk)

Hello there! Thx for the links, I found on your (first) EU-29 study on page 13 (Summary page X), where nuclear is shown to have a LCOE of about 10 euro-cents per kWh. I was thinking about the LCOE statement in question and realized that it's no good to use LCOE in the first place, as it:

• is not explicitly mentioned in the source
• might be misleading indeed (for several reasons)
• causes this controvery in the first place

So best is to just reword the whole shabang to match the original source. However, I think it's usefull to mention that brown coal and nuclear currently generate the cheapest electricity, since the context is about "dismantling and altering fossil and nuclear power plants", so it emphazises that this is challenging.

Reworded —

These include, adapting the electrical grid, constructing new grid-storage capacity, dismantling and altering fossil and nuclear power plants — brown coal and nuclear power are the country's cheapest suppliers of electricity, according to today's calculations — and to construct a new generation of combined heat and power plants.[7]

Since the debated LCOE is no longer mentioned, and the text matches pretty much the original, I hope we can all agree. Thx, -- Rfassbind (talk) 12:50, 15 October 2014 (UTC)

If they are the cheapest, that would normally be because they're paid off assets. The LCOE for *new* nuclear typically shows it to be reasonably expensive, but costs do vary from place to place. Nuclear power is not cheap because of all the expensive containment, safety equipment and so forth.GliderMaven (talk) 00:45, 13 April 2016 (UTC)

Statistics

>The history of Germany's installed photovoltaic capacity, its average power output, produced electricity, and its share in the overall consumed electricity, showed a steady, exponential growth for more than two decades up to about 2012

The solar capacity is so low before ~2008 that the doubling could easily be from shot noise, from 2008-2012 the solar capacity grows rapidly and then apears to satuurate, I expect due to feed in tarrifs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cravatitude (talk • contribs) 11:26, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

What do you mean by shot noise? The solar capacity growth follows an exponential curve quite closely up to 2012, so I think the sentence is accurate. It doesn't really matter how small the quantity was in the past to consider it part of an exponential growth. I agree there is saturation after 2012, as in other countries with rapid solar deployment. --Ita140188 (talk) 04:53, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

because the quantiy is so small in 1990-1999 any increase year on year looks exponential since the installed capacity will monotonicaly increase until the pannels age out. Secondly, since capacity has been rounded to the nearest megawatt rounding errors cause a large relative error in this range, here it does matter how small the quantity is because we are mesuring in megawatts so a diference in 1 MW is 1-50% error. looking at the graph of capacity added from 2003-2015 the capciy aproximatly doubles from 2005 to 2008 and again in 2009, then the capcity added is stable and for 2 years before droping. which shouldn't happen in exponential growth Cravatitude (talk) 14:49, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

I am not sure what you mean by "so small that any increase looks exponential". For example, if I start with 1 MW, and for 10 years I add 1 MW per year, it is linear growth, not exponential growth. This also works if you are talking about 1 kW instead of 1 MW. As for the aging out of panels, as far as I know all data in all these articles (including this) track "cumulative installed capacity", which is not the same as the actual installed operating capacity at the end of the year. In other words, decommissioned panels are still counted. This simplification makes sense now only because most of the panels were installed less than 10 years ago. For the rounding, yes it may be a problem but even in 1990 there are already 2 MW, so the maximum error is about 25% and only for the very first years. Obviously there is a lot of noise in real data, but I think growth from 1990 to 2012 is a very good example of a real-life curve that closely follows an exponential. This is even more evident with the change after 2012, with the growth becoming linear. --Ita140188 (talk) 15:08, 29 January 2020 (UTC)

Amory Lovins link

Can't alter it, but reference 31 link is dead. Here is a proper link: https://energytransition.org/2013/08/energiewende-separating-fact-from-fiction/