Renewable Energy Provided One-Third Of Germany’s Power In The First Half Of 2014

[highplainsdem]

Source: ThinkProgress

Thanks to favorable weather and record production from solar and wind power, renewable energy accounted for approximately 31 percent of Germany’s electricity generation in the first half of 2014.

Non-hydro renewables made up 27 percent of the country’s power, up from 24 percent last year, according to new data released by the Fraunhofer Institute. And for the first time ever, renewable energy sources accounted for a larger portion of electricity production than brown coal.

Production of wind and solar in particular saw substantial gains over the same time last year. Solar grew by 28 percent in the first half of 2014 compared to 2013 and wind power grew by 19 percent over the same period last year. “Solar and wind alone made up a whopping 17 percent of power generation, up from around 12-13 percent in the past few years,” reported Renewables International.

Helped along by low demand on a holiday, Germany nevertheless set another solar power record in June, generating 50 percent of its overall electricity demand from solar for part of the day. And in May, renewable energy sources combined to account for 75 percent of power demand for part of the day.

-snip-

Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/07/08/3456934/renewable-one-third-germany/

[Auggie]

1. Fabulous!

[JDPriestly]

2. No wonder we are spying on the Germans!

We haven't figured out how to do this yet. They have. Maybe we are spying to find out how they did it.

Yeah! Sure.

So if that isn't the reason we are spying on them, what is?

[tanyev]

3. Well, you know they have a lot more sun in Germany.

Fox News Claims Germany Has More Solar Power Than U.S. Because It's Sunnier There

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-02/fox-news-claims-germany-sunnier-country-us

[awoke_in_2003]

5. Exactly what I was thinking...

we need to pull our (collective) heads out of our asses.

[moondust]

9. Ha!

Yeah, Germany is all sunshine and lollipops.



(Don't tell the Germans!)

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, highplainsdem.

[DirkGently]

6. KNR

[daleo]

7. The nuts will tell us how awful this was

Germans taking over the sun? Who knows what absurdities the anti-renewables crowd will manufacture.

[tabasco]

8. Germans, and Europeans in general, are also MUCH less wasteful than Americans

Better public transportation, better recycling, more focus on conservation.

The US is still a throw away society.

[Fred M]

10. These people are serious!

The government's commitment to green energy---and it's discipline in that commitment---is amazing.