(1) ‘Manager Magazin’ Reports How Renewable Electricity Is TakingGermany On A Wild Ride, 28 December 2016
It’s the paradox of the German Energiewende (transition
to green energy): power exchange market prices are lower than ever before, yet
consumers are paying the highest prices ever – with no stop in the increases in
sight. Moreover, the more green electricity that is fed into the grid, the more
coal that gets burned…
Today German Manager Magazin here brings us up to date on
the country’s “greening” power grid — taking a look at the control center of
grid operating company Tennet. Manager Magazin calls it the heart of the German
Energiewende. Here a team of engineers decide how much gets fed into the
various grids and which windparks are allowed to feed in and which aren’t.
Today the task has become a challenging balancing act.
According to Manager Magazin, facility manager Volker Weinreich says “we have
to intervene more often than ever to keep the power grid stable. We are getting
closer and closer to the limit.”
The reason for the grid instability: the growing amount
of erratic renewable energy being fed in, foremost wind and sun. Manager
Magazin writes that there are always four workers monitoring the frequency at
the Tennet control center, just outside Hannover, making sure that it stays
near 50 Hz. Too much instability would mean a the “worst imaginable disaster:
grid collapse and blackout“.
Manager Magazin reports Germany now has a huge oversupply
of power flooding into the grid and thus causing prices on the electricity
exchanges to plummet to levels never seen before. Yet, renewable electricity
producers are guaranteed, in most cases over a period of 20 years, exorbitant
high prices for their energy. This means power companies have to purchase at a
high price, yet can get only very little for it on the exchange markets.
The German business magazine then writes that once again
consumers will be getting the serious shaft, as the feed-in subsidy consumers
are forced to pay will climb another 0.53 cents-euro in 2017, bringing the
total feed in tariff for power consumers to 6.88 cents-euro for every kilowatt
hour they consume.
Bavaria faces Industrial power blackout
Another huge problem is that by 2022 Germany will be
shutting down the remaining nuclear power plants, a source that much of
Germany’s industrial south relies on. In the meantime, the necessary
transmission lines to transport wind power from the North Sea to the south are
not getting built due to protests and permitting bottlenecks. This puts
Bavaria’s heavy industry at risk. manager writes that the transmission lines
are not expected to be completed by 2025!
In Part 3 of its report, manager Magazin reports that
operating a power grid has become more complex and costly, due to the renewable
power, and that the Energiewende has turned into “ecological foolishness“. Weinreich describes how on stormy days wind
parks are forced to shut down to keep the grid from frying. And the more wind
turbines that come online, the more often wind parks need to be shut down. This
makes them even more inefficient...
Weinreich reports that the grid is so unstable that in
2015 it was necessary for Tennet to intervene some 1400 times. In the old
conventional power days, it used to be only “a few times a year“.
In Part 4, Manager Magazin reports that all the
intervention and shutdowns of runaway wind parks are “costing billions” for the
consumers. Alone in 2017 Tennet says grid operating fees will rise 80%,
translating to 30 euros more burden each year for each household. The money of
course ends up flowing from poor consumers and into the pockets of wealthy
solar and wind park operators and investors.
(2) Analysis: Adding More Solar, Wind Power IncreasesDependence On Fossil Fuels, ‘Doubles’ CO2 Emissions, 24 November 2016
A 2011 decision to phase out nuclear power by 2022 has meant that renewables like wind and solar
power are expected to swiftly take the place of nuclear energy on the German
power grid. The portion of Germany’s
power generation from wind and solar (renewables) has indeed risen dramatically
in the last 10 years:
And despite the steep, expensive rise in power generated by renewables since about 2000, Germany still obtained about 44% of its power from coal as of 2014, which is a higher share than in the United States (33% as of 2015)…
“As more solar and
wind generators come online, … the demand will rise for more backup power from
fossil fuel plants.”
The full article, entitled “Rise in renewable energy will
require more use of fossil fuels” also
points out that wind turbines often produce a tiny fraction (1 percent?) of
their claimed potential, meaning the gap must be filled by fossil fuels:
Wind provided just
33 megawatts of power statewide in the midafternoon, less than 1% of the
potential from wind farms capable of producing 4,000 megawatts of electricity….
wind and solar
energy must be backed up by other sources, typically gas-fired generators. As
more solar and wind energy generators come online, fulfilling a legal mandate
to produce one-third of California’s electricity by 2020, the demand will rise
for more backup power from fossil fuel plants.
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See also:
Energy 83, The PEMC-NGCP Electricity Summit 2016, low ESSPs last October and high FIT-All next year, November 22, 2016
Energy 84, CCC's anti-coal, anti-fossil fuel lobbying, December 02, 2016
Energy 85, Trump transition team questions for US DOE, December 17, 2016
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