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by yourMadness 2586 days ago
For those of you that want to see the data behind this story: https://www.energy-charts.de/energy.htm?source=all-sources&p...

I think the history is one of a failed economic subsidy program that accidentally accelerated the PV-industry by a few years.

There were several growing PV manufacturers in germany up to around 2011/2012. In that timeframe the manufacturers were all busy building new factories, but the government noticed that the subsidy program became large enough to be expensive and suddenly severely cut the subsidies. None of the manufacturers survived that, the remains were sold to the chinese.

2 comments

Yeah, the Energiewende is an absolute farce. The government exited nuclear while utterly gutting the German PV industry. It's mind-boggling.
Some relevant numbers (TWh) from that graphic:

                2002    2018
    Total        503     545
    Coal + Oil   253     205
    Gas           40      44
    Nuclear      156      72
So, they've successfully got rid of about 50% of nuclear and 20% of coal by adding a very small amount of gas generation. Presumably the rest is coming from renewables. Sounds like a pretty good progress report.
Presumably the rest is coming from renewables.

No reason not to complete the picture, I guess:

                    2002    2018

    Total            503     545

    Coal+Oil         253     205
    Nuclear          156      72

    Gas               40      44
    Biomass            4      45

    Wind+Solar+Hydro  39     177

    Other             10       3