Solar Power in Germany

[hcap]

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/alternative_energy/2013/03/solar_power_in_germany_how_a_cloudy_country_became _the_world_leader_in_solar.single.html


Now German companies lead the world in solar research and technology. The handful of companies that make inverters, the devices that reverse the flow of electricity and feed power from rooftop solar panels back into national grids, are almost all German. On a sunny day last May, Germany produced 22 gigawatts of energy from the sun—half of the world’s total and the equivalent of 20 nuclear power plants.

The “feed-in” laws and subsidies pushed innovation to the point where solar panels are cheap enough to compete on the open market in Germany and elsewhere. The price for solar panels has fallen 66 percent since 2006, and the cost of solar-generated power may be competitive with coal in a few years, according to a study by UBS. Already, solar projects are thriving in places like India and Italy despite a lack of government subsidies or support, and a recent Deutsche Bank report predicted “grid parity” in Bavaria by next year.

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Actually, what's needed and probably a good long term investment is in energy storage systems to deal with the lack of steady energy production unlike the remaining advantage of traditional power sources, the sun and wind are not steady

[ArlJim78]

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/project_syndicate/2012/02/why_germany_is_phasing_out_its_solar_power_subsidi es_.html

According to Der Spiegel, even members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s staff are now describing the policy as a massive money pit. Philipp Rösler, Germany’s minister of economics and technology, has called the spiraling solar subsidies a “threat to the economy.”

Germany’s experiment with subsidizing inefficient solar technology has failed. What governments should do instead is to focus first on increasing research and development to make green-energy technology cheaper and more competitive. Production should be ramped up later.

In the meantime, Germans have paid about $130 billion for a climate-change policy that has no impact on global warming. They have subsidized Chinese jobs and other European countries’ reliance on dirty energy sources. And they have needlessly burdened their economy. As even many German officials would probably attest, governments elsewhere cannot afford to repeat the same mistake.

[hcap]

Your article is outdated Feb. 18, 2012

The one I posted March 29, 2013

and gives both sides. But there is no doubt that although the conservatives (figures :)) think it is inefficient it is not. Notice the market drop in prices beyond government subsidies. The fact that many can recover some of the costs by feeding back into grid, is an added incentive.

Once again...
Now German companies lead the world in solar research and technology. The handful of companies that make inverters, the devices that reverse the flow of electricity and feed power from rooftop solar panels back into national grids, are almost all German. On a sunny day last May, Germany produced 22 gigawatts of energy from the sun—half of the world’s total and the equivalent of 20 nuclear power plants.

The “feed-in” laws and subsidies pushed innovation to the point where solar panels are cheap enough to compete on the open market in Germany and elsewhere. The price for solar panels has fallen 66 percent since 2006, and the cost of solar-generated power may be competitive with coal in a few years, according to a study by UBS. Already, solar projects are thriving in places like India and Italy despite a lack of government subsidies or support, and a recent Deutsche Bank report predicted “grid parity” in Bavaria by next year.

[badcompany]

Current German energy policy is a failure to everyone except the hard left which believes that not having electricity is "progress."



http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2012/10/30/germanys-energy-policy-man-made-crisis-now-costing-billions/


Germany’s Energy Policy: Man-Made Crisis Now Costing Billions
Posted October 30, 2012


The German people are “up in arms” about energy. Yes, energy—the commodity that affects us every day—our clothes, our food, our entertainment, our transportation, and even our medical treatments. For Germans, electricity prices are soaring as a result of phasing out nuclear power and mandating renewable energy. Consumers in Germany are facing the biggest electricity price increase in a decade and those price increases will continue. It is estimated that by 2030, Germany will have spent more than 300 billion Euros on green electricity. And consumer groups are complaining that about 800,000 German households can no longer pay for their energy bills.

If this rise in energy prices continues, household energy bills could exceed the rent Germans pay for housing in parts of the country. Because renewable technologies are not economic compared to traditional fossil fuel technologies, Germans have had and will continue to pay an additional increasing premium for their use. Because of this premium, electricity prices are expected to increase by over 10 percent next year—the largest increase in a decade. Americans should watch what is happening in Germany regarding the electricity rate base and in other parts of Europe, such as Spain, in their march to build renewable power.

[Robert Goren]

Bad Company, your article is still 5 months behind Hcap's. Surely you can do better than that .

[hcap]

It ain't over till the fat lady sings. Long term trends.......


Initiatives aimed at cutting carbon emissions and establishing long term energy security will see renewable energy claim a 36% share of global cumulative installed capacity by the end of the decade, states the latest report from business intelligence firm GBI Research.

http://www.gbiresearch.com/Report.aspx?ID=Cost-of-Power-Generation-Renewables-Compete-with-Conventional-Alternatives-as-the-Levelized-Cost-of-Electricity-%28LCOE%29-is-driven-down-by-Technological-Developments-and-Mass-Deployments&ReportType=Industry_Report&Title=Power_~_Alternative_Energy

The new report explains that solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind energy will be the primary technologies forecast to drive global renewable energy installed capacity from 1,695 GW in 2012 to 2,762 GW in 2020 – boosting the industry's share of the world total installed capacity from 30% to 36%.

The solar PV sector has expanded massively in recent years, and with countries including India and China announcing ambitious future solar PV targets, there are no signs of this growth abating in the near future. Correspondingly, GBI Research predicts global solar PV installed capacity to reach 331 GW by 2020 from 97 GW in 2012, climbing at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 16.6%.

Spurred on by favourable government policies in countries such as Germany, China and the US, the global installed capacity for wind is also expected to prove a key contributor to renewable energy, more than doubling from 284 GW in 2012 to 685 GW by 2020, according to GBI Research forecasts.

The capital costs of renewable energy generation are currently higher than those of conventional methods, but government initiatives and technological advances have steadily decreased renewable generation expenditure over the last four to five years, lowering the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) and further driving the industry.

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And if you factor in subsidies to the oil and gas and nuclear industries----much larger than renewables, they are competitive right now

[badcompany]

Bad Company, your article is still 5 months behind Hcap's. Surely you can do better than that .

Yes, because an article is 5 months old therefore it's no longer true.

Germany is a terrible candidate for solar. Have you ever heard the phrase

"Sunny Germany"?

[hcap]

http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/ubs-boom-in-unsubsidised-solar-pv-flags-energy-revolution-60218

UBS: Boom in unsubsidised solar PV flags energy revolution
By Giles Parkinson on 23 January 2013

The revolution in energy markets caused by the growing impact of rooftop solar PV is about to take a dramatic leap in scale.

According to analysts from the global investment banking giant UBS, the arrival of socket parity – where the cost of installing solar is cheaper than grid-sourced supplies – is about to cause a boom in un-subsidised solar installation in Europe, and the energy market may never be quite the same again.

Such forecasts have long been the province of environmentalists, climate activists, university researchers, and the occasional industry leader, such as David Crane, the head of NRG, the largest generator of electricity in the US.

Now, the team of energy analysts from UBS, writing in response to plunging power prices in Europe, has issued a stunning report entitled “The unsubsidised solar revolution” – suggesting that investing in solar will become a “no brainer” for households in several European countries, and will have profound implications for the incumbent energy industry.

“Solar has turned from a heavily-subsidised marginal technology into a mainstream source of power generation,” the UBS analysts write. ” “Thanks to significant cost reductions and rising retail tariffs, households and commercial users are set to install solar systems to reduce electricity bills – without any subsidies.”

http://reneweconomy.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Screen-Shot-2013-01-22-at-9.56.16-PM.png

"Here’s a graph to illustrate what they mean. It shows the light blue line at the top, which indicates where grid-based electricity costs are heading.

The dark blue line indicates the cost of solar PV – it’s now at an inflection point in southern Germany and will get cheaper.

But PV with battery storage, while more expensive now, will cross over in 2014 and ultimately deliver the biggest savings.

UBS says this means utility customers will effectively become utility competitors. It estimates there could be 80GW of unsubsidised solar installed in Germany alone."

[hcap]

Yes, because an article is 5 months old therefore it's no longer true.

Germany is a terrible candidate for solar. Have you ever heard the phrase

"Sunny Germany"?No Germany is not. The title of my first article is

"Can You Have Too Much Solar Energy?
Germany’s little-guy suppliers are destabilizing big power companies.

[hcap]

http://www.altenergymag.com/news/2013/03/29/solar-energy-causes-revolution-in-dutch-electricity-market/28798

EINDHOVEN/ROTTERDAM – The growth of solar energy has had a much greater impact on the Dutch energy infrastructure than was previously expected and taken into account. As solar panels look set to supply a much greater share of domestic electricity needs in the future, gas and coal plants are growing increasingly unprofitable, and energy utilities are having to find new solutions for energy storage and smart-grid development.

According to experts, the growth in market share of solar energy could amount to much more than the 4000 MW that the companies and organizations united under the Dutch National Solar Energy Action Committee predicted for 2020. This projection was based on an annual growth of 25 per cent. Last year alone, the growth of the number of solar installations in the Netherlands amounted to more than 200 per cent. If annual growth turns out to be more like 50 percent than 25, the Netherlands will have reached a milestone of 1.5 million installed solar energy systems within five years, compared to the 100,000 that are already operational.

[Valuist]

Silver is needed for conductivity in the solar panels. They had better come up with an alternative because when the silver shortages hit, and they will, they will be screwed.

[DJofSD]

Silver is needed for conductivity in the solar panels. They had better come up with an alternative because when the silver shortages hit, and they will, they will be screwed.
FTFY: We need to find an asteroid with silver in it then bring it down to earth.

[HUSKER55]

I read the article and solar is having the same problem everyone else is having. How to make an effective storage device, ie, battery. Seems to me that the system can't stand by itself but what it can do is upset the supply markets of the traditional suppliers.

they produced 22GW, which sounds like a lot to me, but it had to be used instantly and the electric companies had to buy it and had to deliver it. it is better than a coal plant for the environment, which is good, but from a practical stand point I don't see that field going anywhere until battery development makes a huge advance.

but still, my point of view is that if I didn't have to rely on a utility company I would think I was in heaven.

seriously, am I the only one that would like to tell a utility company to KMA?

[DJofSD]

I read the article and solar is having the same problem everyone else is having. How to make an effective storage device, ie, battery. Seems to me that the system can't stand by itself but what it can do is upset the supply markets of the traditional suppliers.

they produced 22GW, which sounds like a lot to me, but it had to be used instantly and the electric companies had to buy it and had to deliver it. it is better than a coal plant for the environment, which is good, but from a practical stand point I don't see that field going anywhere until battery development makes a huge advance.

but still, my point of view is that if I didn't have to rely on a utility company I would think I was in heaven.

seriously, am I the only one that would like to tell a utility company to KMA?I would guess 99% of all electrical power is comsumed immediately.

Finding a lower cost battery would be fantastic. I have looked at a small home based solar power station for self use, i.e. not selling it back to the local power company. The cost of storage batteries is a significant expense.

[Greyfox]

Ocean tides will ultimately be the most efficient, reliable, and cheapest way to produce electricity. Forget solar.