Germany led the world for the number of solar installations during 2012. This relatively small European nation added 7.60 GW of capacity to the grid. Then their numbers started going downward: 3.30 GW of new solar capacity in 2013; 1.56 GW in 2014; 1.4 GW in 2015. As of October 31, only 0.79 GW of new capacity has been added this year. Germany’s critics are once again hailing the imminent demise of this nation’s renewable revolution. What happened to Energiewende?
Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein have achieved Germany’s renewable target for 2025. They already obtain 40% of their energy from renewables on an annual basis. A technological breakthrough, the digitization of industry, will be required to go further. This region of 4.5 million people expects to obtain 70% of its energy from renewables by 2025 and 100% by 2035. Schleswig-Holstein and Hamburg will be showcasing the fourth industrial revolution.
Aside from the cold winter of 2012, Europe’s electric consumption has been declining the past five years. A combination of milder winters, advances in energy efficiency and some industry relocations have brought the numbers down. It is against this background that the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) point to the marked growth of wind and solar energy. According to their report Electricity in Europe 2014, renewables supplied 32.9% of the EU’s electricity.
American critics of Energiewende regularly announce its approaching demise. A hypocritical article in the Wallstreet Journal announced that Germany will spend €1 trillion on its’ renewable energy experiment by 2040, without mentioning that a large portion of that money was for electric grid upgrades that would be needed anyway. Nor did the author disclose the fact an even larger sum (€90 billion a year) would have gone to fossil fuels. Similarly, Forbesmocked Germany’s slight rise in CO2 levels, without mentioning they are already 23% lower than the 1990 benchmark set by the Kyoto Accord. (The author’s country, the US, is still 5% above that target.) Their carping does not explain how Germany became Europe’s powerhouse and the fourth largest economy in the World. Nor does it do justice to the nation the Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index (RECAI) ranks #3for renewable investments. Energiewende will succeed because it is embraced by the German people.
Germany was not the first European nation to install offshore wind farms. There were plants in Denmark and England years before the first turbine was erected a mere 500 meters off the quay wall of the Rostock international port in 2005. Tracing the story of Germany’s offshore wind farms, we repeatedly found references to the independent project planning company WIND-projekt GmbH, whose portfolio includes everything from on and offshore-wind turbines to energy storage.
