At the start of June this year, Germany set a new record by producing 50% of its electricity needs with solar panels. Solar panels in that country of over 80 million people produced over 23 gigawatts of electricity on the afternoon of June 9th, which corresponded to 50.6% of the nation’s demand for electricity.
That day was a national holiday (which lowered demand) and it was an unusually sunny day. These factors lead to breaking through the 50% barrier for the first time. But Germany has been aggressively deploying renewable energy for years. For the first quarter of this year, renewables met 27% of that country’s electricity needs.
Germany has a national goal to get all of its electricity from renewable sources by 2050. Ninety-percent of the solar panels in Germany are on people’s rooftops and there are more all the time. Solar power production increased by 34% compared with last year, in part due to favorable weather but also as a result of the expanding number of systems.
As the contributions from solar power rise, the need for energy storage will also grow. On sunny days, Germany may soon be able to produce more electricity than it can use and it needs to be able to save it for later.
Germany, a country with far less sunshine than we have here, is leading the world in deploying solar power and we need to watch what goes on there very carefully to learn what to do and what not to do as the electric grid is reinvented.
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Germany produces half of energy with solar
Photo, posted July 16, 2011, courtesy of Mogins Henrik Sorensen via Flickr.
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Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio.