> Solar deployment is now happening at a roughly $500B annualized rate.
Which technology deployments were larger than this? The US's aircraft production during WWII seems to have peaked at maybe $400B (inflation-adjusted). Global datacenter construction appears to be maybe $200B/year.
And India at #4 is one to watch. There are a lot of people there who will benefit from cheap energy.
It is a bit funny how Germany seems to be floundering thanks to the Energiewende. In hindsight it looks like a clear mistake to have gone in so hard without waiting until it made economic sense.
Take a look at a map, India is far, far more to the south than Germany. I have the feeling that some Germans would see solar power as a panacea even if they lived on the north pole.
Germany will have around 12 GW new solar power installed in 2023 (with about 1/4th of the US population), so a little bit more per capita than the US. It is important to know that almost all of Germany is more to the north than the most northern parts of the US (except Alaska), so solar power in Germany is much less efficient and in winter almost completely useless.
Do you have more information about that? If you average the power over a month, then yes it might be true in the plot, but I suspect it's less smooth in real-time.
It doesn't average out on an intraday basis, but neither does consumption, which has its peaks during the day.
I know someone working at an energy provider heavy on renewables, there they use gas turbines (=biomass) for compensating heavy fluctuations, because those are online in a few minutes.
The shutdown had nothing to do with renewables. It was done by conservatives who, in the same year they took this step, proudly proclaimed that they stopped the buildout of PV in Germany.
Yeah, shortening energy supply when you already have a supply crunch is very good way to kill the economy. The only question is if this was done by stupidity or malice.
> Solar deployment is now happening at a roughly $500B annualized rate.
Which technology deployments were larger than this? The US's aircraft production during WWII seems to have peaked at maybe $400B (inflation-adjusted). Global datacenter construction appears to be maybe $200B/year.
More here: https://about.bnef.com/blog/renewable-energy-investment-hits...