Germany: For First time, Wind and Solar Power Generation exceeds Fossil Fuels
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Ember energy analysis firm reports that for the first nine months of 2024, Germany generated more electricity from wind and solar than from fossil fuels for the first time in history. Wind and solar combined accounted for 45 percent of electricity.
All in all, 59% of German electricity, almost six tenths, has come from renewables this year, with hydro the main source aside from wind and solar. In 2023, renewables only accounted for 52% of Germany electricity, so there has been a substantial advance. Half of that advance came from new solar installations, Ember says.
An amazing 11 gigawatts of new solar capacity has been added this year. As of mid-summer, Germany had 92 gigawatts of installed solar capacity, exceeding its 2024 goal of 88 GW.
Through the end of July, fossil fuel electricity generation plummeted 14.5% from the same period in 2024, reaching the lowest levels on record. The consumption of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel, fell by 39% through September of this year compared to the same months in 2023.
Germany’s carbon emissions dropped by 10% in 2023 compared to the previous year, and are expected to fall again this year. If all industrialized countries met Germany’s performance, the climate crisis would be less severe. Energy-related carbon emissions in the US. fell last year, but only by 3%.
The rapid advance of solar, Ember explains, is the result of government policy changes, including the reduction in bureaucracy and easier permitting and “simplified grid connection for small PV systems,” as well as better remuneration for consumers who sell their electricity back into the grid.
“German Solar,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3 / Clip2Comic, 2024
Wind installations kept pace with those of the previous year, at 2.3 gigawatts. Wind-generated electricity was up 7% this year. Although wind’s progress was not as spectacular as that of solar, it still did make impressive advances, and there is a lot of capacity in the pipeline. Germany won’t quite meet its goals for total wind installations of 80 gigawatts this year, but those goals are the most ambitious in the European Union.
Winds have been anemic in the summer and fall, but are expected to pick up in the last two months of the year. Wind has had to be replaced with expensive fossil gas for the moment. Emissions will likely still fall, since electricity demand is lower. Wind plus battery will smooth out some of these fluctuations in the future.
There are also legal reasons for which wind will advance even more in future. Ember writes, “The German government has declared renewables to be in the overriding public interest, a privileged legal status which unlocks faster permitting and simplified procedures. Furthermore, German states are now required to allocate around 2% of their land for wind turbines.”
Ember doesn’t say so, but battery capacity is also rapidly increasing in Germany, where battery storage reached 9.9 gigawatts so far in 2024. Reuters reports that grid battery capacity in the country is up by 1/3 in 2024, an incredible advance. In the next two years, through the end of 2026, battery storage in Germany is set to increase five-fold, according to Clean Energy Wire. Battery storage allows solar energy to be captured during daylight and released at night.
CEW adds that “more than 80 percent of smaller photovoltaic rooftop systems are already being installed in combination with battery storage systems.” That combination is not nearly as common in the United States, but it should be.
Two big issues loom over Germany’s energy situation. One is the closure of the country’s nuclear plants at the insistence of the Green Party, which has been in government off and on (it is part of the present shaky coalition). Despite predictions of gloom and doom, the transition to wind, solar and battery has gone well.
Clean Energy Wire observes, “Decades of debates came to an end in April 2023, when Germany finally shuttered its last nuclear power plants after the energy crisis. One year on, predictions of supply risks, price hikes and dirty coal replacing carbon-free nuclear power have not materialised. Instead, Germany saw a record output of renewable power, the lowest use of coal in 60 years, falling energy prices across the board and a major drop in emissions.”
The other issue is the Ukraine War and Germany’s attempt to wean itself off Russian fossil gas. Germany cut its natural gas imports by nearly a third last year, and is pressing the EU to end imports of gas from Russia, still 20% of Europe’s usage. There isn’t any doubt that replacing both nuclear and fossil gas with wind, water, solar and battery is saving Germany money and allowing it energy independence from Russia.
In 2025, as Trump comes back into office, Americans should remember the cost savings offered by renewables, the environmental benefits of reducing carbon emissions and avoiding climate catastrophes, and the significance of energy independence for the US and its allies. Germany has overtaken Japan to become the world’s third largest economy.
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