Sunshine in Germany was way higher than usual October 2018.
(Although I wish they had graphs like the UK available.) (And I wish they used the 1981-2010 mean)
Category: Germany
German Electricity March 26 2018
Lets say its March 26th 2018 8pm in Germany and there is about 59GW of demand to keep the country functioning and you are a greenie looking forward to a day when there is no more nuclear or CO2 producing power plants..
Ooops.
0.00GW from solar.
1.13GW from wind.
9.27GW from nuclear.
45.5GW from CO2 producing power plants (gas, coal, biomass, oil)
10 Hours of Sun in Germany for December 2017
At NoTricksZone the insanity of Germany’s “plan” for saving the worlds from cheap electrcity is on display.
80GW of demand (the reddish line)
40 GW of installed solar producing almost nothing (the yellow)/
10 hours of sunshine in Germany for the whole month of December.
As Jo Nova says:
“Imagine what kind of havoc this kind of energy flux can do. Not one piece of baseload capital equipment can be retired, despite the fact that half of it is randomly unprofitable depending on cloud cover. Solar PV eats away the low cost competitive advantage. Capital sits there unused, spinning on standby, while wages, interest, and other costs keep accruing. So hapless baseload suppliers charge more for the hours that they do run, making electricity more expensive.
They just need batteries with three months supply.”
Coal Saves Germany From Freezing (so far)
German Electricity August 2016 – Days and Days Without Much Wind
Sometimes the wind blows in Germany and then it stops for 5 days ….
German Electricity June (1st to 7th) 2016
Remember the big noise a few weeks back about Germany being essentially powered by wind turbines.
Not so much noise now that wind is 5GW or less for about 6 days in a row.
German Wind Farms Paid €500 Million A Year To Stand Idle
Because of the boom of renewable energy, more and more wind turbines have to be switched off. The reason is power overloading. The network operators must turn down electricity generated from windmills when their power threatens to clog the network. Originally, this was intended only as an emergency measure. The operators of wind and solar parks, however, are being subsidised for electricity that is not produced.
For the grid operator Tennet alone, these costs added EUR 329 million in 2015 – two and a half times as much as in the previous year. The other network operators 50Hertz, Amprion and EnBW had a combined cost of 150 million euros, according to a survey of Wirtschaftswoche among the four network operators in Germany.
German Electricity Week 15 2016
Germany is planning to rely on wind and solar. I shake my head in wonder when I see wind generation statistics like Week 15.
3 days in a row with less than 3GW. (The following chart is just wind electricity production)
UHV – Ultra High Voltage Transmission
China is building a network of Ultra High Voltage power lines to move electricity long distances. They even have plans to build UHV lines to Germany so they can sell the Germans cheap electricity generated by coal.
“There are 2300 new coal plants with 1400GW of capacity planned worldwide”
“China’s proposed investment in long-distance, ultra-high voltage power transmission lines will pave the way for power exports from China to as far away as Germany.”
While UHV has been used in Russia and other counties in the past, China is perfecting it. The US grid, for example, operates at 500kv or lower.
UHV allows the transmission of very large amounts of electricity with more efficiency. What are the advantages of UHV?
Increased Transmission Capacity: A single 1000 kV UHV-AC circuit can transmit +/-5 GW, approximately 5 times the maximum transmission capacity of a 500 kV AC line. An 800 kV UHV-DC transmission line is even more efficient, with a capacity to transmit 6.4 GW.
Extended Transmission Distance: A 1000 kV UHV-AC line will economically transmit power distances of up to 2,000 km (1240 miles), more than twice as far as a typical 500 kV AC line . An 800 kV UHV-DC power line can economically transmit power over distances of up to 3,000 km (1,860 miles).
Reduced Transmission Losses: If the conductor cross-sectional area and transmission power are held constant, the resistance losses of a 1000 kV UHV-AC line is 25% that of the 500-kV AC power line. The resistance loss of an 800 kV UHV-DC transmission line is an even more remarkable 39% of typical line power erosion.
Reduced Costs: The cost per unit of transmission capacity of 1000 kV UHV-AC and 800 kV UHV-DC transmission is about 75% of 500 kV AC costs.
Reduced Land Requirements: A 1000 kV UHV-AC line power line saves 50% to 66% of the corridor area that a 500 kV AC line would require. An 800 kV UHV-DC line would save 23% of the corridor area required by a 500 kV DC line.
German Electricity Week 14 2016
Germany is planning to rely on wind and solar. Last week on April 8th, wind and solar combined for 0.94GW out of 55GW.
Averages don’t keep the electricity on. They will need lots more brown coal when they shut down the nuclear power stations.
The whole week (just solar and wind). Yes, sometimes combined they generate a lot of electricity.
But on April 8th Germany went almost a 1.5 days where almost nothing was generated by wind.
sunshine hours 