Germany: The Solar Super Power!

[M_B_S]

http://planetsave.com/2012/03/29/solar- ... any-video/ The solar revolution startet in Germany......this is the reason why we are boomimg and the USA is loosing.

But there is a >problem< : China copies so good ..... The USA has to copy the german solar revolution too just as it did with our automobile and technology ideas in the 19th and 20th century.

Oil is the problem not the solution.

[radon]

Yeah, while the dummy oil superpowers are cruising around with their military scavenging for the bits of the remaining oil, Germany will again outsmart everyone with their solar/hydrogen-powered Bundeswehr.

[no_wuckin_ferries_mate]

The USA has to copy the german solar revolution too just as it did with our automobile and technology ideas in the 19th and 20th century.

Hi MBS, you certainly know about the problems with solar and wind in Germany. The grid is under extreme stress since the base power is missing since those nuclear plants have been shut down.

While it is good that they get rid of those nuclear stuff that now threatens the whole world it is as important to make sure there is no prolonged blackout. This would lead all running and all shut down nuclear power plant to go the way of Fukushima.

About 5 weeks ago, after the sudden retreat of the high Harry and the unforeseen and sudden strong wind it was on a knife edge, and Europe was just one step from the abyss.

Solar or wind alone are not the solution. Europe desparately needs a solution for the storage of renewable energy to deliver reliable power for the times without sunshine and wind.

You say the US should copy Germany's solar thing. It would bring the US into the same dilemma in which Europe is now if they don't deal with the problem of baseload power. What's even worse in the US there is no broad support against nuclear since many just do not know anything about that matter.

I have come to Europe to work with some local people here on a solution. While we are making progress it still takes a lot of time mainly due to financial restrictions. It is therefore important that people get educated about the background. Only then there is sufficient pressure on the politicians to make them acknowledge the problem.

Renewable energy is the future, but we have all those nuclear power plants around and even if they all got shut down, there is no way around that we have to make sure they get cooled for many years. A long blackout will inevitably lead to a meltdown of all power plants, and this includes the ones you have shut down in Germany. If that is not enough look over the Rhine - the French have 70 NPPs.

Edit: typos

[M_B_S]

As the video shows the grid stress was extrem in france ( 80% nuclear) this winter not in Germany!

Your own emission free power station....

Just do it !

http://www1.eere.energy.gov/solar/pdfs/31687.pdf

Millions of German house owners now have their own sun power station on the roof.

http://www.sma.de/en/news-information/p ... rmany.html

Of course the grid problem is real but the grid owners will / must per law fix it.

M_B_S

[misterno]

I am confused

How can Germany be the superpower in solar energy when they don't even receive much sunshine?

Can someone please explain? Something does not make sense.

[sandu635]

You are making a confusion in compering price spikes with grid stress. France and Germany didn't have any problems this winter with there power grids, especially Germany. France in the worst days of this winter still had over 5000MW of capacity in reserve but of course at a very high price The real problems are in the UK and especially Italy with relay on a lot of natural gas for power generation (over 50% in Italy) and is a really big problem in winter. Italy stopped delivering natural gas to industry for a week so power plants and home heating not to be affected and still there natural gas grid was pushed to the limit. There were no similar problems in France or Germany.

[no_wuckin_ferries_mate]

You are making a confusion in compering price spikes with grid stress.

No, that is not correct. It is not so much about how much power is available but about the frequency of 50 Hertz.

Supply and consumption of power in the grid must be equal ANY SECOND. More supply = higher frequency, less supply = lower frequency.

Many control devices are depending on that frequency of 50 Hertz, and if there are only tiny fluctuations, those devices need to shut down. It does not affect your lights in your house or your TV, but those fluctuations shut down high tech devices with in turn then like a domino increase the imbalances in the grid which finally leads to an instable grid which shuts itself down.

To keep the balance between supply and consumption is much easier with coal, gas or nuclear power plants than with solar or wind where supply can change unpredictably.

The solution is to store solar or wind power and then use it in a controlled manner from the storage. Of course that costs money, but not doing it costs our lifes.

I would like to mention that I am not against renewable energy, and I have a history of 40 years against nuclear power, and I was one of the first ones experimenting with solar thermal back in the Eighties. Unfortunately those nuclear plants and used fuel storages are here now, and we can*t close our eyes to the very real danger they pose, and just follow the path to solar and wind.

While we are switching to solar and wind we must also make sure that the nuclear legacy does not harm us the way we wanted to avoid in the first place.

As I mentioned before, I am member of a think tank, who is working on storage solutions for solar and wind energy. We will soon publish our suggestions and findings, however, even if we develop a way to store the energy there will be additional costs, and that will only be accepted by the population and politicians if they know about and understand the problem.

Edit: Sorry, I forgot two links. The originals are in German, however, I include also links to a rough translation with Google.


1
German version: click on the following link and then on that website on the heading starting with "Blackout" a bit further down.
http://energiekrise.org/aktuelles

To see the translated version click on the following link and then on that website on the heading starting with "Blackout" a bit further down.
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fenergiekrise.org%2Faktuelles&act=url


2
German version
http://www.sfv.de/artikel/das_502_hertz_problem.htm

Google translated version
http://translate.google.com/translate?s ... tm&act=url

[dissident]

I am confused

How can Germany be the superpower in solar energy when they don't even receive much sunshine?

Can someone please explain? Something does not make sense.

You are right it's total BS. According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany in 2010 solar accounted for 2% of Germany's electricity consumption. An important point not being mentioned is that most of subsidies that enabled installation of PV panels on people's roofs are being and have been phased out. So the rapid growth in capacity from 2000 to 2010 will not continue.

[SeaGypsy]

Same thing happened in Aus, re solar subsidies. However the price hs now gone down so much that without subsidies panels are not much different in price to what they were at the beginning with.

The line about folks having their own solar station is largely bollocks as nobody nowhere is subsidizing off grid stand alone systems, they are grid feed. If the lights go out in your street, it doesn't make any difference if you have your roof covered in panels.

[davep]

Same thing happened in Aus, re solar subsidies. However the price hs now gone down so much that without subsidies panels are not much different in price to what they were at the beginning with.

The line about folks having their own solar station is largely bollocks as nobody nowhere is subsidizing off grid stand alone systems, they are grid feed. If the lights go out in your street, it doesn't make any difference if you have your roof covered in panels.

The sensible doomer (if you can call anyone with more money than sense sensible) could use the grid tie-in to generate revenue, and use cheap grid electricity to charge his batteries. Then, when the grid goes down, he switches to his batteries and uses his solar panels to charge them. It shouldn't be too difficult, technically.

[dissident]

Same thing happened in Aus, re solar subsidies. However the price hs now gone down so much that without subsidies panels are not much different in price to what they were at the beginning with.

Interesting. This must be due to all the cheap Chinese panels on the market. But at current prices I would not buy them if they don't last 20 years and they seem to have serious longevity issues.

The line about folks having their own solar station is largely bollocks as nobody nowhere is subsidizing off grid stand alone systems, they are grid feed. If the lights go out in your street, it doesn't make any difference if you have your roof covered in panels.

I guess this is just a basic limitation of the battery storage that people are prepared to deploy assuming their roof real estate is large enough.

[sandu635]

no_wuckin_ferries_mate, you are right , frequency is also important.

There is a big difference between wind and solar PV. This is counter intuitive but wind is smoother then solar PV for an average size farm. Data shows that when you have 5-12 large wind farms on a grid you get a factor of 10 reduction in noise. No data on large solar like in Germany but its possible that you get a similar effect. Germany by now has this data but i didn't see it in a public report for now. Solar thermal is better then both.

I still think the power is more important and will be more costly to manage because you really need 1 to 1 balance to mange no wind situations or at least in the 90% range. Even in high wind areas you get several days a year with no wind and you can even get freak events with no wind for 1-2 weeks . This because of large high pressure weather systems. No amount of storage can help with this , not even reverse hydro can cope with this .

There is also a so called "wind drought". Wind data from airports in the last 40 years show that you have years with average lower winds. This can also be a problem.

All of this will matter when you get over 35% and higher wind in power grid.

UT Energy Symposium
http://www.energy.utexas.edu/index.php? ... Itemid=147

March 1: What the Characteristics of Wind and Solar Electric Power Production Mean for Their Future
Jay Apt, Professor of Technology, Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University.
http://www.energy.utexas.edu/images/sto ... 120301.pdf
http://www.utexas.edu/media/video/energ ... 030112.mp4 (1.20 G)

Sorry for my bad english.

[cephalotus]

Germany will reach around 30GW of solar power during 2012. This would put us at #1 (at the moment).

During 2012 I guess that solar power will provide around 25TWh of electricity, this is about 4% of the electricity production and more than the production of water power in Germany for example.

The grid has to be upgraded to allow more wind + solar power to come online, this will cost money. This are not exactly news.
The 50,2Hz problem is manmade and not related to the technology of solar energy. It will be solved very soon. For keeping the frequency stable there is the primary reserve market in Germany. 1MW of primary reserve (+/-) now costs around 15.000€ for one year. Those that are now making the first storage systems to sell reserve capacity do claim, that very soon Li-Ion or NaS batteries will be cheap enough to provide for primary (and seconbdary) reserve capacity.
They also expect the prices to FALL, not to rise.

So I can see no indcation for any emergancy ralated to frequency in the European grid because of the changes in capacty from nuclear to wind and solar.

Btw, yolar capacity has grown by <20GW from 2000 to 2010, this would be less than 2GW per year. It is VERY unliekly, that solar capacty will not grow at least as fast in the next decade.
Even if you cut fed in tarrifs to zero.

In Germany solar power is already cheaper than power from the grid for most consumers, so as long as you do not punish people for installing solar power (i.e. to rise the price for the base load) there is nothing to stop photovoltaic in Germany now.

This also accounts for other countries.

You can build a PV power plant now for less than 1.500 US$/kW, everything included. (in Germany at least)

In Saudi Arabia 1kW PV power plant will produce 2.000kWh of electricity per year. Otherwiese you would need more than 3 barrels of oil in your oil power plants.
Even if you do not count other benefits (solar provides most expensive peak load in those countries) it is a very simple calculaton.
Invest 1500US$/kW now and you gain 300-400US$ each year as additional oil exports.

It will take 5 years and you get your money back + interest, so after five years electricity from a PV power plant will cost around 1 USct/kWh. If you build a new nuclear power plant in Saudi Arabia it will be online after five years if you are VERY lucky. Try to compete with 1USct/kWh electricity from solar energy.

No chance.

It will take 2-3 years until people know what is already a fact. Solar has become so easy to install and so cheap that it is cheaper than many alternatives in many parts of the world.

The US now(!) has ultra cheap natural gas from fracking. Nothing can compete with that n the electricity sector as long as there is no (high) price penalty on CO2 emissions. But this is just the US.

best regards

PS: Variation of PV production of all PV power plants in Germany is very smooth:

http://www.sma.de/de/news-infos/pv-leis ... hland.html

[no_wuckin_ferries_mate]

The 50,2Hz problem is manmade and not related to the technology of solar energy. It will be solved very soon. For keeping the frequency stable there is the primary reserve market in Germany. 1MW of primary reserve (+/-) now costs around 15.000€ for one year. Those that are now making the first storage systems to sell reserve capacity do claim, that very soon Li-Ion or NaS batteries will be cheap enough to provide for primary (and seconbdary) reserve capacity.

Dream on Ceph. Eine Woche Inversion im Winter benötigt einen Speicher von 10.000 GWh für ganz Deutschland. In Batterien???

[kublikhan]

About 5 weeks ago, after the sudden retreat of the high Harry and the unforeseen and sudden strong wind it was on a knife edge, and Europe was just one step from the abyss.

As I mentioned before, I am member of a think tank, who is working on storage solutions for solar and wind energy. We will soon publish our suggestions and findings, however, even if we develop a way to store the energy there will be additional costs, and that will only be accepted by the population and politicians if they know about and understand the problem.

That sounds really interesting. Have you looked at other options to the intermittency problem of wind and solar besides storage? Energy storage seems like one of the most expensive solutions available. I am curious if you looked at these options:
1. Smart Grid. Ex: Lower or turn off large loads during times of high demand/low supply. Such as turning off a charging EV, staggering AC usage, temporarily suspending aluminum manufacturing, etc.
2. interconnecting geographically dispersed sources so they can back up one another. Built up the grid with a large reserve of geographically dispersed power generation. Then if wind stops blowing in one region of the country, import more power from another part of the country.
3. Fossil fueled peak plants. Drawing down energy storage is fine for short periods. But if you are faced with a medium to long term shortage in energy supply or an abnormally high spike in demand, it seems to me it would be cheaper just to bring a few natural gas/coal plants online to handle the extra energy needs. Seems like it would be alot cheaper than building a grid battery capable of providing the energy needed to supply a substantial portion of the grid for extended periods of time.

Edit: Found an English article on Germany's recent near blackout:
Germany Barely Escapes the Blackout

Sounds like this the German energy grid needs to be updated. The east-west lines need to be expanded to allow larger flows of power to safely transfer power around the country. This should be done even if Germany was not going heavy wind/solar.

[SeaGypsy]

I haven't seen the relevant contracts personally, but here in Aus to qualify for solar electric subsidy you have to sign that you will NOT charge a battery bank. Thus in effect criminalizing those who have both solar panels and batteries. I have not heard of anyone being prosecuted yet, but most people I know who have solar elec are ok with the lack of stand alone capability in return for a feed in tarrif.

[cephalotus]

In Germany battery system for (small) PV plants are now actively promoted by many companies.

Some offer one phase backup, others three phase backup (German households are connected at 3x 240V/400V), others no backup during grid failure. Most of them are sold with the intention of improving the direct consumption rate, storing solar power during midday and using the batteries at the evening.

You can buy battery systems with lead acid battry, with large Li-C/LiFePO4 cells or with small consumers cells in 18650 standard form. An Austrian company sells redox flow systems.

There are some (rare) systems that offer no need for grid connection at all:

http://www.das-energieautarke-haus.de/

(imho that's not the ideal way to do it, grid connection is a wise thing, otherwise you have to thrwo away most of your solar energy during summer).

There are even comapnies thingking about solar+battery systems. know from a (well known) microchip producer which has its peak load during hot and steamy summer days and who thinks about reducing this with solar + battery storage. Afaik they wait for some more price drops.
We are talking Megawatts here, not just a few kW.

The fed in tarrifs in Germany (around 13 €ct/kWh to 19€ct/kWh) are high enough to give away solar energy that is not needed, but the real bebenfit know comes from directlöy using that energy for yourself.

I have don caclulations for supermarkets. Those have a baseload for cooling and a daytime load mostly for the lights and that fits almost perfectly to the solar power. You can use roughly 90% of the solar energy that you produce, depends on the size of the roof and the modul technology.
So if you produce solar power for 15€ct/kWh (falling) and you have to pay 18€ct/kWh (raising) for electricity from the grid the calculaton is quite easy. If you have to give away the 10% solar power at 0ct/kWh or 15ct/kWh doesn't really matter. Maybe you can cool your fridges during sunny sundays colder than -18°C and store the solar power in form of cold to the next day.

Because the grid price includes taxes and several other costs using your own solar energy is not cost neutral to the society. But that doesn't matter from an investors point of view.

The really intersting question for Germany now is the role that photovoltaik has to play in the future. Until some years ago, people agreed that photovoltaic is there to balance wind power and reduce the storage that would otherwise be needed for wind energy only.
Now it could be possible that solar will be cheaper than wind, at least solar power from old PV power plants, which should be able to produce electricity at 2€ct/kWh.
It could be wise to use that solar energy for long term storage and synthetic fuel concepts.

For old wind power plants it is difficult to provide electricity at 2€ct/kWh, because maintenance cost rise on old wind power plants and repowering is often a more attractive option. This is different with solar power.

McKinsey say that there will be 600GW solar power by 2020 worldwide. I bet that it will be more...

Maybe the Chinese will make solar panels (they seem to be quote good at this), but others will make the silicon, the wafers, the glass, the inverters, the factory inventories, the battery systems, the installation, the smart grids and so on...

[SeaGypsy]

Maybe the Chinese will make solar panels (they seem to be quote good at this), but others will make the silicon, the wafers, the glass, the inverters, the factory inventories, the battery systems, the installation, the smart grids and so on...

China already makes all of these things.

[radon]

What is worrying about the wind power is that it involves massive moving mechanical parts. These are usually the first to going out of order or broken. Fixing them would require lots of money and effort as the wind turbines are erected high above the land surface. Solar installations are static structures and free from that kind of risk. So solar looks less risky and easier to sustain in the long term.

[Shaved Monkey]

Same thing happened in Aus, re solar subsidies. However the price hs now gone down so much that without subsidies panels are not much different in price to what they were at the beginning with.

Subsidies dropped by $1500 and the price remained the same as panels also dropped by $1500 for 1.5 KW system

The line about folks having their own solar station is largely bollocks as nobody nowhere is subsidizing off grid stand alone systems, they are grid feed. If the lights go out in your street, it doesn't make any difference if you have your roof covered in panels.

Depends how far you live from a power pole

Households and businesses installing systems on buildings more than a kilometre from the main grid or who have evidence that it would cost in excess of $30,000 to connect to mains power will be eligible to receive the Solar Credits multiplier for the first 20kW of their system installed. Currently the Solar Credits multiplier is a factor of five, so the savings can amount to tens of thousands of dollars for systems rated at the maximum level!

http://www.energymatters.com.au/renewab ... ebates.php