Germany gets economic lift with wind energy

35 Comments on "Germany gets economic lift with wind energy"

Davy on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 8:30 am 



Meaningless article of unsupported fake green hopium. How was the economy lifted? References and math are not present. I am in no way cutting down this effort. This effort is vital and admirable and many more nations should make similar efforts a priority. Yet, please don’t blow green hopium ass gas my way. This is not yet a valid solution to our many predicaments, not even close.

jawagord on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 9:36 am 



Tripling the rate households pay for power doesn’t seem like a good way to boost the German economy or any economy.

“For household consumers (defined for the purpose of this article as medium-size consumers with an annual consumption within the range of 2 500 kWh < consumption < 5 000 kWh), electricity prices during the second half of 2016 were highest among the EU Member States in Denmark (EUR 0.308 per kWh), Germany (EUR 0.298 per kWh) and Belgium (EUR 0.275 per kWh); see Figure 1. The lowest electricity prices were in Bulgaria (EUR 0.094 per kWh), Hungary (EUR 0.113 per kWh) and Lithuania (EUR 0.117 per kWh). The price of electricity for households in Denmark and in Germany was more than three times as high as the price in Bulgaria."

http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Electricity_price_statistics

rockman on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 10:15 am 



Davy – I’ll take your word about the “hopium” since I didn’t care to muddle thru the piece since I don’t have much interest in what’s happening in Germany. That’s Cloggie’s role. LOL.

But Texas is another matter. Yes: E.on, a bunch of dang foreigners, built out much of our wind power. And thanks to those efforts Texas ranks right behind the entire country of Germany. And it added to our economy to a meaningful level.

But let’s put the turbines aside and look at the really big news in Texas from E.on today: commercial scale grid storage. As pointed out before we have a great advantage in this regard: we didn’t wait for storage to build out wind power. Grid storage can be IMMEDIATELY applied today to deal with the wind intermittent problem. Which is exactly what E.on is in the process of doing.

“E.ON North America announced today its Texas Waves energy storage projects will be co-located at the existing E.ON Pyron and Inadale wind farms in West Texas. Texas Waves consists of two 9.9 megawatt (MW) short duration energy storage projects using lithium-ion battery technology.

The Texas Waves projects will be the second and third grid connected lithium-ion battery systems installed by E.ON in North America and are expected to be online by the end of 2017.”

So Texas overcame the “chicken-egg” hurdle. With an existing huge wind power base we’re immediately ready for a grid storage solution. And if E.on proves the commercial viability of grid storage (at least to itself) it can use that leverage to add to the economic value of building new wind farms. But it can go way beyond wind. Now that solar costs have come down so much Texas is on the verge of a huge grid capacity solar build out where there’s the obvious intermittent problem.

And Texas has a geographic advantage with solar as it does with wind: we have a lot of empty (IOW low cost) land that gets a lots of sunlight even in the winter months. And thanks to the $7 billion already spent by our tax payers to connect those lands to our big electricity consumers we’re ready today for grid storage now. Just a case of “build it and they will come”. With our wind and solar already built grid storage will come when it can stand alone economically. And if the Texas grid storage model proves its viability it may open up solar build outs in states which either don’t have the wind capacity or the vision of turbines are not acceptable by the locals.

And as the Texas economy continues to grow our electricity demand is projected to grow significantly along with it. And renewable energy will be even more critical in the future when fossil fuel fired generation will inevitably become much more expensive then it is today. As well as less politically acceptable.

Cloggie on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 10:18 am 



Tripling the rate households pay for power doesn’t seem like a good way to boost the German economy or any economy.

kWh price is only a part of the story. At least as important is that the Germans need less energy to make a million $:

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/01/08/what-countries-are-the-most-energy-efficient/

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.EGY.PRIM.PP.KD

1990-2014

Russia 12 – 8
Canada 10 – 8
China 21 – 7
USA 9 – 6
Bulgaria 15 – 6
Belgium 7 – 5
Germany 6 – 4
Holland 6 – 4
Denmark 4 – 3

Slow lane energy inefficient countries like China, Russia and the US need far more energy to make a million $. More advanced Western European countries need less.

On top of that, NW-European countries are developing the renewable energy industries of the 21st century that are going to replace the Anglo oil majors (thanks DJT!).

So who cares if in Europe you need to pay a little more for a kWh?

Cloggie on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 10:22 am 



I’ll take your word about the “hopium” since I didn’t care to muddle thru the piece since I don’t have much interest in what’s happening in Germany. That’s Cloggie’s role. LOL.

But Texas is another matter. Yes: E.on, a bunch of dang foreigners, built out much of our wind power. And thanks to those efforts Texas ranks right behind the entire country of Germany. And it added to our economy to a meaningful level.

E.ON is German.

Glad to be of service.lol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.ON

See it division of labor. After all we in Europe over the past decades have been using the good services of the likes of Texaco.

Glad that we finally can do something in return.lol

Ghung on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 10:25 am 



Davy: “This is not yet a valid solution to our many predicaments, not even close.”

There is no ‘valid solution to our many predicaments’, so there’s no point in holding this project to that standard.

jawagord: .”The price of electricity for households in Denmark and in Germany was more than three times as high as the price in Bulgaria.”

Since the per capita GDP in Denmark and Germany is several times that of Bulgaria, this isn’t much of a valid comparison. Denmark’s GDP per capita is 8 times that of Bulgaria and Germany’s is about 6 times. Paying 3 times more for electricity than Bulgarians do seems like a bargain, eh?

Average net incomes are also 6 times or more.

Let’s try to keep our comparisons real.

Cloggie on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 10:37 am 



Meaningless article of unsupported fake green hopium.

Some lazy ass goat shepherd with low ambition level down-talking the remarkable efforts and achievements of the Germans.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-green-technology-record-power-generation-35-per-cent-renewables-solar-wind-turbines-a7820156.html

How was the economy lifted?

Upwards.

References and math are not present. I am in no way cutting down this effort.

But it is nevertheless an example of meaningless unsupported fake green hopium.

Yet, please don’t blow green hopium ass gas my way. This is not yet a valid solution to our many predicaments, not even close.

The secret behind all these fake doom-callers is that they are looking for an excuse to have to do nothing. Davy is the embodiment of American decline.

Davy on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 10:44 am 



There clog goes again using numbers to support his supposed superiority. Clog don’t go comparing a countries like you have in yoorup and compare that to the entire US. You are so caught up in your numbers game and are unable to dig deeper in a balanced fair way. You are a typical agendist unable to see the truth through his chauvinistic mentality.

Cloggie on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 10:48 am 



There clog goes again using numbers to support his supposed superiority. Clog don’t go comparing a countries like you have in yoorup and compare that to the entire US. You are so caught up in your numbers game and are unable to dig deeper in a balanced fair way. You are a typical agendist unable to see the truth through his chauvinistic mentality.

I am sorry davy if I hurt your exceptionalist feelings with Worldbank facts.

Truth hurts.

Cloggie on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 11:02 am 



Result German election:

AfD 13%

Excellent!

Third party, out of the blue.

rockman on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 11:02 am 



Jaw – It’s rather complicated to estimate what the true cost of wind generated power is for Texas consumers. A couple of links explaining why:

https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/price-of-us-wind-power-at-all-time-low-of-2-5-cents-per-kilowatt-hour

http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_juice/2015/09/texas_electricity_goes_negative_wind_power_was_so_plentiful_one_night_that.html

But it’s easy to compare the typical retail price consumers pay in Texas to the numbers you posted. Average consumer price of Texas electricity: $0.12/per kilowatt-hour. And in some areas as low as $0.08/kWh. And in one of the links above they calculated the PRODUCTION cost of wind to be as low as $0.03/kWh or less. Or in Euros: an average of Texas electricity = €0.10/kWh compared to Germany’s €0.298/kWh. Of course we get a lot of electricity from burning NG which is much less expensive here then in Germany. OTOH that raises the bar significantly for our wind power to compete with relatively cheap coal and NG.

I suspect part of that difference between electricity cost in Texas and Germany is similar to the difference in motor fuel costs: taxes.

Davy on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 11:10 am 



Clogfraud, try comparing Germany to California. Who is the exceptionalist wannabe fake.

Cloggie on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 11:14 am 



I suspect part of that difference between electricity cost in Texas and Germany is similar to the difference in motor fuel costs: taxes.

Of course it is. Primary energy prices are world market prices (more or less).

Dear Rockman, I know you are a responsible, orderly person. May I remark that the 2nd link in your 11:02 post causes the thread to become unreadable on tablets. I needed to get up from my comfortable sofa where I watch German television and the election results.

Clogfraud, try comparing Germany to California. Who is the exceptionalist wannabe fake.

Do I hear a llama shitting?

Jean Paul Getty on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 11:24 am 



Llama’s don’t live in Europe…

Cloggie on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 11:25 am 



Llama’s don’t live in Europe…

In the US they apparently do.

Davy on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 12:02 pm 



clog, just be nice and don’t cheat. Most people don’t like cheaters. You are reflecting poorly on your country.

Twocats on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 1:44 pm 



Will efforts like this be enough to sufficently cushion the blow of peak oil to prevent a collapse of industrial civilization. Who knows. I don’t see the ethics of criticizing the effort.

rockman on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 4:39 pm 



Cloggie – “May I remark that the 2nd link in your 11:02 post causes the thread to become unreadable on tablets.” Just opened it up OK on my $64 tablet. You must be using one of those sh*tty Bulgarian tablets. LOL.

Yes: a $64 tablet. And that was a couple of years ago so probably cheaper now. Yes:the Rockman is not one of those “ugly Americans” that flaunts his wealth. That and he’s also a cheap bastard. LOL.

And yes, I really meant “bastard”: son of a hooker that worked Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Accounts for some of the naughty language I occasionally use. LOL.

deadlykillerbeaz on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 6:11 pm 



Up in Nunavut in Yellowknife the temp is 51° F today. Anchorage is 50° F, Chicago is 87° F, Duluth Minnesota is 68° F.

Baffin Island is at around 27° F.

Good weather above 60 degrees north, looks like good weather for the next week way up North.

http://dateandtime.info/citycoordinates.php?id=6185377

Doesn’t Germany use coal to generate electricity?

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601514/germany-runs-up-against-the-limits-of-renewables/#comments

rockman on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 6:39 pm 



Twocats – “Will efforts like this be enough to sufficently cushion the blow of peak oil to prevent a collapse of industrial civilization.” I can see the potential of renewables to help Texas industry and residential electricity consumers to weather PO. OTOH our drivers might not.

New Texas moto: they can have my V8 pickup when they pry the key from my cold dead hand. LOL.

rockman on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 11:26 pm 



Baez – A snippet from a year ago:

“Many of France’s nuclear units are down for inspection. As a result, coal and natural gas generation has more than doubled. Last month, generation from fossil fuels was the highest in 32 years in France and nuclear generation was the lowest since 1998. As a result, French month-ahead power prices escalated to near the highest levels since 2009.

Germany is replacing its nuclear units with renewable energy (wind and solar) as part of its energy transition, the so-called Energiewende. It is using mainly coal to back-up its intermittent renewable energy and as a result, it has increased its coal-fired generation. Due to the higher cost of wind and solar units, residential electricity prices have escalated and are 3 times that of the United States.”

Bloomer on Sun, 24th Sep 2017 11:46 pm 



US consumers pay less for power then Germany because their power generation is heavily subsidized. The US coal industry is allowed to pump out CO2 and other greenhouse gases at no extra cost. Even if it means the extinction of human kind.

Plantagenet on Mon, 25th Sep 2017 1:20 am 



Germany had to fire up coal-fired power plants to replace the nuclear power plants they shut down. This means that Germany’s CO2 emissions are RISING, thereby screwing up the climate for everybody else in the world.

http://www.environmentalprogress.org/big-news/2017/1/13/breaking-german-emissions-increase-in-2016-for-second-year-in-a-row-due-to-nuclear-closure

Cheers!

Cloggie on Mon, 25th Sep 2017 3:36 am 



Cloggie – “May I remark that the 2nd link in your 11:02 post causes the thread to become unreadable on tablets.” Just opened it up OK on my $64 tablet. You must be using one of those sh*tty Bulgarian tablets. LOL.

Eh no. Both my one year old 1069,- euro, 13 inch iPad Pro (for reading at home)…

http://www.mediamarkt.nl/nl/product/_apple-ipad-pro-12-9-2017-wifi-cellular-64gb-spacegrijs-1515379.html

… as well as my brand new regular 10 inch iPad, for reading outside on my favorite terrace…

http://tinyurl.com/ya726s7j

… will NOT display the text at the right border.

On my new 30 inch Samsung monitor everything is fine though.

It has nothing to do with the price of the monitor/tablet, but with the size. The crappy forum software is not able to handle long strings with only underscores in it, like in your slate link.

From your post with the slate link, this sentence on my Samsung…

“But it’s easy to compare the typical retail price consumers pay in Texas to the numbers you posted. Average consumer price of Texas electricity: $0.12/per kilowatt-hour. And in some areas as low as $0.08/kWh. And in one of the links above they calculated the PRODUCTION cost of wind to be as low as $0.03/kWh or less. Or in Euros: an average of Texas electricity = €0.10/kWh”

…is displayed as

“But it’s easy to compare the typical retail price consumers pay in Texas to the numbers you posted. Average consumer price of Texas electricity: $0.12/per kilowatt-hour. And in some areas as low as $0.08/kWh. And in one of the links above they calculated the PRODUCTION cost of wind to be as low as $0.03/kWh or less. Or in Euros: an average of Texas electricity = €0.10/kWh”

The bold parts are missing. Now in this case I can guess what the missing words are, but if our resident climate Lenin, who loves to think that he is smart, posts without thinking much longer links the threat becoming entirely unreadable.

As I have kindly advised many times in the past, please use tinyurl.com if you want that somebody can actually read your post. It is in your own interest.

Cloggie on Mon, 25th Sep 2017 3:44 am 



Germany had to fire up coal-fired power plants to replace the nuclear power plants they shut down. This means that Germany’s CO2 emissions are RISING, thereby screwing up the climate for everybody else in the world.

Perhaps you tone down a little Plant in the light of this data:

http://tinyurl.com/9vu6rew

USA 13
Germany 9.2

And Rockman was such a good sport to admit that the Germans have build most of the wind towers in Texas, although he didn’t realize that E-ON was German. How is that for emission limiting? Oh and we Europeans intend to build much of the rest of the upcoming renewable infrastructure in the US as well. Who else?

[tsjing!] (cash counter sound)

And don’t get me started on hydro-infrastructure.

[tsjing!] (cash counter sound)

Cloggie on Mon, 25th Sep 2017 3:56 am 



This link gives info about the composition of the German kWh price (scroll down to ring-shaped diagram)

https://www.kwh-preis.de/strom/strompreise

Price 28.5 euro cent

53% is tax:

Strompreis

28,5 Cent/kWh
Umsatzsteuer 4,5 Cent (VAT)
Stromsteuer 2,1 Cent (current tax)
Konzessionsabgabe 1,6 Cent (concession tax)
EEG und KWKG Zuschlag ca. 6,9 Cent (alt-energy + power heat coupling tax)
Steuerbelastung 15,1 Cent/kWh (total)

So yes, this EEG-KWKG is indeed the famous renewable energy subsidy, although the expectation is that the coming offshore tenders will result in ZERO subsidy. Developers are ready to build the wind parks “for free”, that is without price guarantee.

But Rockman can confirm that the fossil fuel industry gets billions of subsidy as well from the government. And there will come time, even in the US, where the cost for polluting the environment will be charged to the consumers.

And Germany gets a fully fledged new industry branch and the world will be keen once again to buy “made in Germany”.

Germans get a good deal with this 28.5 cent/kWh.

Davy on Mon, 25th Sep 2017 7:14 am 



“This means that Germany’s CO2 emissions are RISING”

Last I notice rising is rising and that is telling us something more about the much vaunted “Energiewende”. IMA, some of the highest electrical costs in the world are associated with the Energiewende. Oh, that is not all, you guys are just getting started. You still need to make the grid a super grid and develop all that storage not to mention build out a tremendous amount of new generating capacity and and and by the time you do that replace some of what you built out with new and and and all those EV’s passenger cars, EV over the road trucks, and EV planes. Sounds like a big to do list and you are already seeing the highest electrical costs in the world. I am not saying this should not be done or it is not admirable. No, I am not saying that at all. I am saying show some humility and sobriety but that is impossible from someone like the clogmeister.

Bloomer on Mon, 25th Sep 2017 7:55 am 



There should be a global class action law suit launch against all coal fired power plants owners. The plaintiff should be all living beings.

Davy on Mon, 25th Sep 2017 8:06 am 



“There should be a global class action law suit launch against all coal fired power plants owners. The plaintiff should be all living beings.”

There should be a global class action law suit launched against all humans who overconsume and through that overconsumption require the use of coal. The plaintiffs should be the poor of the world. Woops, that is you and me as defendant’s bloomer. Watch what you wish for.

makati1 on Mon, 25th Sep 2017 8:44 am 



“Coal power in the United States accounted for 39% of the country’s electricity production at utility-scale facilities in 2014, 33% in 2015, and 30.4% in 2016[2] Coal supplied 16.5 quadrillion BTUs[dubious – discuss] of primary energy to electric power plants in 2013, which made up nearly 92% of coal’s contribution to energy supply.[3] Utilities buy more than 90 percent of the coal consumed in the United States.” WIKI

TommyWantsHisMommy on Mon, 25th Sep 2017 1:27 pm 



How the heck can wind replace nuclear. Nuclear runs almost 24/7… “Honey… no heat tonite…wind isn’t blowing.”

The fact is we’ll burn everything. The coal, the oil, the gas, the furniture, the backyard trees, the cribs, the condos. We already burn food in our cars (corn).

I think wind/solar can make a big push and some areas will do really well, but for the majority..BAU will be hard to keep up with resource depletion. I just can’t see battery replacing oil..not as this usage.

rockman on Mon, 25th Sep 2017 3:19 pm 



Tommy – “How the heck can wind replace nuclear.” As I noted above thanks to those f*cking Germans at E.on we may be on the verge of seeing proof that wind (and possibly solar) may be able to do just that. They are installing a storage system that will be fed by 2 of their wind farms in west Texas. They note this as “short-term storage” presumably to level day to day variations in wind power output. Not a theory: actual combining wind power and storage on a grid scale basis…just like nuclear. This should (in a year or so) produce a bottom line economic analysis of a complete system. It will be all the more impressive if it proves to be commercially viable since it will be competing directly against relatively low cost NG fired electricity generation.

The really big win will be if their storage system is viable when teamed up with solar: Texas has a lot more acreage with solar then wind potential.

Cloggie on Tue, 26th Sep 2017 2:38 am 



Rockman says: As I noted above thanks to those f*cking Germans at E.on we may be on the verge of seeing proof that wind (and possibly solar) may be able to do just that… This should (in a year or so) produce a bottom line economic analysis of a complete system. It will be all the more impressive if it proves to be commercially viable since it will be competing directly against relatively low cost NG fired electricity generation.
The really big win will be if their storage system is viable when teamed up with solar: Texas has a lot more acreage with solar then wind potential.

Here is the architecture of a 100% renewable energy base for Germany, that is electricity + space heating (everything):

https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/09/16/blueprint-100-renewable-energy-base-for-germany/

As you suggest the picture for Texas will look different: higher quality sun, lower quality wind as compared to Germany.

peakyeast on Tue, 26th Sep 2017 3:15 am 



I wonder what a category 5 storm will do to a solarcell farm…

Cloggie on Tue, 26th Sep 2017 3:32 am 



I wonder what a category 5 storm will do to a solarcell farm…

http://tinyurl.com/ybgxsyg7

Possible solution: mount them close to the ground and “earth up”, to prevent that the wind forces get a grip on the large solar panel areas.

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/articles/print/volume-18/issue-4/features/solar/ensuring-your-solar-array-doesn-t-get-caught-in-the-wind.html