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  • Hacker News
  • Anyone know why they dont just say 12TWh?
  • because it drives clicks
  • Climate change has come through for us once again
  • But it is (should be) cheap to power the AC now.
  • The elevated temperatures actually reduce the efficiency of solar panels. The increase is due to more panels, not more solar flux on Germany.
  • perhaps this will help them lessen dependence on energy from Western Sahara https://wsrw.org/en/news/renewable-energy
  • Second heatwave in two months helps, I guess
  • Related:

    Wind and solar overtake fossil fuels in Germany for the first time

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49155359

  • 12 TWh
  • Or 12 trillion nuclear power plants with a capacity of 1 Wh each
  • To answer tyromaniac's question that is dead and therefore I can't reply to: The United States utility companies bill by the kWh, so American-centric news will report in multiples of that unit.

    And as a sidenote, why do people downvote a question rather than answer it? Some of us like answering questions and deadening a question removes that ability.

  • I don't get it

    12B KWh = 12M MWh = 12,000 TWh?

    by giva
  • Also about 16 GW. They don't say what the installed capacity is but average midday generation is 40 GW for usage of 40% which is not bad.
  • But how many AAA-batteries is that?
  • It would be nice if that led to lower prices. All the comparisons I could find are showing Germany near the top for electricity price.

    https://energyfactbook.com/world/electricity-prices-by-count...

  • Merit-order pricing keeps consumer prices high.

    Whether it is the best mechanism to incentivize a transition towards renewable energy sources is debatable, but OP at least implies that we’re on the right direction.

    At some point we will have enough renewables to turn off the old and expensive gas and coal plants. Until then we just have to live with the feeling that it’s an investment towards future generations.

    Perhaps humanities biggest flaw is to prioritize instant gratification over long term benefits.

  • Yey, we contribute 432 kWh to that. Northern Germany, small 6.3 kWp system.
  • 530 kWh here in July pushed to the grid with a 5kWp system
  • 1.8 MWh, highest production since we built our 12 kWp system five years ago.
  • 817 kWh here. Though june last year was the record at 904 kWh. Maybe the effect is that solar panels lose efficiency when too hot.
  • Whenever I see news like this one I feel bad for us in Greece... we have so much sun yet we don't utilize it to the maximum we could for generating electricity and our KWh price is one of the most expensive in Europe. It's a pitty the government doesn't invest in solar or encourage households to do so :-(
  • In Greece there is an unjustified support for natural gas. They deliberately stop renewables adoption (no more netmetering, no more batteries) because the Prime minister sleeps at the same bed with gas-people (like Mytilinaios). We have to burn gas from a few to many hours per day.
  • I see this in so many sunny countries, which is such a shame. So what prevents you from just installing panels on your roof?
  • Just do it. Don’t wait for the govt to tell you. Solar is almost free at this point.
  • Cool, a quarter of the country is in a "D4 exceptional drought" (1 in 50 years), half of the rest in a 1 in 30 years drought and the rest in good ol' regular drought. But the sun do be bright indeed
  • Always look on the bright side of life.
  • Germany has still one of the highest electricity and energy prices among developed nations which tremendously hurts its industrial base. That has to change too unless this cannot really be called a success I think.
  • The problem with electricity for industrial use is, that you also need electricity during long, dark, cloudy winters, when there is very little solar power available. Somehow all the "green" supporters are all afraid of nuclear powerplants for some reason and instead prefer coal, even though there's more radioactive crap going into the air from that than from nuclear plants.
  • They are also one of the few nations with high export to import ratios. If it is weighing down industry then it is a great loss factor in the race against china.
  • For that to change they need to not depend on expensive power plants (such as coal, gas, etc.), the bidding process for the electricity market in the EU will price the 15-minute window kWh price to the most expensive source providing power to the electricity zone being supplied.

    Unless there's a revolution in this pricing mechanism the only way for Germany to lower its electricity prices is through renewables build out to push away the more expensive sources.