“News reports at the end of October indicated that Germany was on track to generate significantly more solar energy than in the previous year. So far in 2020, solar energy has accounted for 43 terawatt-hours (TWh) as net solar electricity production surpassed the total amount for 2019. This is the equivalent of 12.4 percent of Germany’s overall energy mix, and enough to power all private households twice over.
“Total renewable power generation as of the end of October 2020 was 195 TWh, a figure that includes all forms of renewable energy, ranging from solar and wind power to hydropower, biomass, etc. When industrial energy consumption is factored in, electricity from all renewables accounted for 52.2 per cent of total net public production, compared to 46 per cent in 2019.”

While increasing, they still have a LONG way to go.

“The increased share of green electricity in Germany follows a multi-year trend as the country is in the midst of an energy transition away from fossil and nuclear fuels towards a zero-emissions energy system. Nevertheless, the success of solar power in the past ten months is to some extent also due to the global slowdown of economic activity triggered by the coronavirus crisis.”

Germany is an outlier in that since Fukushima popped its button, its gone full-in with removing nuclear energy from their mix:

“As part of the “Energiewende” (energy transition), the German government under Chancellor Angela Merkel has decided to phase out all nuclear power plants and will shut down the remaining reactors within the next two years. This turnaround is in line with public opinion in Germany, which has increasingly turned against nuclear power since the disaster in Fukushima, Japan in March 2011. At that time, nuclear plants accounted for nearly a quarter of Germany’s energy supply. The energy transition also dovetails with the EU’s European Green Deal, a plan to make the continent climate-neutral by the middle of the century.”

Nuclear is a tricky one to double down on removing, because it’s close to a zero carbon source of energy. It’s just that occasionally nuclear power plants go BOOM and you’re still picking up the pieces ten years later.

[Cover photo: Thomas Richter]