Of course the Internet has its positive and negative points, Just as social networks - mostly - have the power that the news or facts are not selected, they are retweeted. At the same time we can check more or less simple if the news promoted by a media outlet communication is real.
In this case we look at Germany and its “apparent” revolution in the renewable energy sector. For many, today, a Top-Ten to follow in the field energetic. Where phrases like "Germany revolutionizes the renewables” or “Germany produces half of its energy through the sun" refreshes the reader's conscience as a country to follow.
At this point I always like to remember an article that we do in this portal… “The infoxication of the process certification” Where we evoked Pommer's law… “One person's opinion may change after reading information about it on the Internet. The The nature of the change is such that you go from not having an opinion to have a wrong opinion”… This is called Infoxication.
Focusing on the theme of the article, firstly a significant act from the European Union; Germany is between the 24 EU countries that DO NOT comply with the Directive European Energy Efficiency Law 2012/27/UE.
Second point, we review the capacity of Germany in producing solar energy with a simple reference to official statistics (HERE – In German automatic PDF download) for the generation of electricity, being quite simple what they tell us.
Last year, only 4.5% of gross generation of electricity in Germany came from panels solar. Actually, 46% of the generation of Electricity comes from coal, and just over half of the The coal that feeds Germany comes from burning “Lignite”, one of the most contaminants for the generation of electricity in the planet.
“While Germany continues to expand the solar and wind power, the government's decision to phase out gradually nuclear power means that it must now rely heavily on the dirtier form of coal, lignite, to generate electricity. The result is that after two decades of progress, CO2 emissions of the country are increasing.” (Access to the news HERE)
Clarifying that this end point in CO2 emissions is a worrying issue that Germany is trying to address by renovating its coal plants.
These statistics make it clear that the “solar return” in Germany are far from reality, being now more hype and illusion than a feasible theme.
More worrying is the growth of the plants of coal in Germany. At the end of last year he had a total of 36 gigawatts of installed solar capacity, which produced 28.3 terawatt hours of electricity. Without However, between 2011 and 2015 Germany is blazing a trail in the coal sector with 10.7 gigawatts in their coal power plants.
Poyry consultancy projects that these new plants coal-fired power plants will average capacity factors of 80% If so, will they have an annual production an average of 75 terawatt hours. In others words, within five years Germany will have a capacity to produce annual electricity via coal more than double that of all your solar panels.
Another issue that we must understand, that Germany is not the perfect country to have installed solar panels. On average, only 46% of the time sunlight can be used. Evidently on a very sunny you can get a lot of energy in based on solar panels but what matters are not the peaks, is the annual average.
Solar radiation in Germany varies enormously during the year. Daily yield of solar panels of Germany reached a peak last year on July 21, when the panels produce 20.9% of the daily demand for electricity. Conversely, the worst day of the year was January 18 , when solar panels produce just over 0.1% of the demand for Germany electricity. The truth is that of the latter fact, nobody talks!
And if we make calculations of the advances that Germany will have in the production of solar energy. The German government has set in motion a long-term goal of increasing its solar installations per year to be able to produce between 2.5 and 3.5 gigawatts.
If we adopt the higher figure 3.5 gigawatts installed in each year, Germany would need about almost 90 years to reach 50% power supply based on energy solar, without counting the necessary renovations in its solar installations or the problem of storage energetic.
Data aside, clearly Germany is advanced in the energy sector renewables, both in getting rid of dependency energy as well as in improving before the economic savings that use renewable energy, a point that many EU countries they are forgetting, without detracting from the fact that Germany is a leader in Energy Efficiency worldwide among the top 16 economies of the world, but a revolution energy in the renewable energy sector needs time, money ahead and a clear political will that many sometimes it is truncated by "hidden" interests.
