Germany hits 62.7% renewables in 2024 energy mix, with solar contributing 14%
The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Fraunhofer ISE) reports that Germany generated 72.2 TWh of solar in Germany in 2024, accounting for 14% of total electricity generation.
I wish people would stop conflating energy with electricity.
So Germany had ⅔ of it's electricity from renewables, but still has gas for warming homes, petrol for cars, diesel for trucks, and so on.
That's fair, but it's still a very relevant metric. It shows the automatic transition made in electrification when people switch over to heat pumps, electric stoves or EVs.
Exactly. As the amount of renewable zero carbon electricity increases, it will become less expensive than fossil fuels, which will naturally drive energy usage away from the more polluting sources.
You're right, but if you read beyond the title it's clearly stated that it's about electricity generation.
For anyone who is interested in a detailed view of these stats worldwide in real time and cross-border with carbon intensities and individual breakdowns by electricity source: https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/72h
WTF is Australia doing? Aren't they aware they have plenty of sunshine and an insanely long shoreline?
Australia is just an oil company, a coal company, and a mining company disguised as a trench coat. The Liberal party (essentially just American Republicans opposed to guns) spent 2 decades killing any green energy initiatives in favor of fracking the Outback
IIRC Australia mines a huge amount of coal
Shame, innit? They could be the n1 Solar panel producers per capita and panel exporters...oh well. This is why the charge against fossil fuels has to be led by net consumers (in the name of defense against geopolitical risk) and the producers will inevitably reduce extraction for export...but local consumption of coal probably will never disappear completely unless locals complain about air pollution and lag in exportable tech.
Australia likes its coal like america its guns.
Really cool. Thanks for the share. Also quite depressing, most countries (even rich ones who have like triple responsibility) are barely even trying.
Meanwhile, the USA is 24%-ish renewables and 60%-ish fossil fuels. Damn fossil fuel industry and anti-progress politicians.
*state dependent. ;)
One of the nicer upshots of cutting the cord with Russia is the sky high price of electricity incentivizing big investments in renewable energy.
I love that chart you can't read.
Original chart source: https://www.energy-charts.info/downloads/Stromerzeugung_2024.pdf
Slide 17
Ty
Yeah that sucks, they haven't shared the source, only what site it's from.
This is the closest I could find: https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&interval=year&year=-1&source=public
But this includes all sources, where the chart shown only includes renewable sources. I can't find it on the site, but I'm kinda dumb so maybe somebody else can find it.
They used to have nuclear too
Yeah, what's up with that? Nuclear works well for France, so why did it fall out of favor in Germany?
It's not perfect, but it does a fantastic job at providing a base load alternative to batteries, which could significantly reduce rollout costs if they had existing plants. It's probably not worth switching now, unless they have some dormant plants that could be fired up quickly (like we're doing in the US).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerhard_Schr%C3%B6der
Step 1 shut down nuclear, and switch to gas
Step 2 get hired by gazprom
There has always been quite a noticeable anti-nuclear sentiment in Germany, especially in the 70s/80s and after Fukushima political pressure rose to get rid of nuclear power. Some also say that the SPD was very friendly with Putin and that's why they were happy to increasingly rely on Russian gas imports. Not sure if that's true though
next up: zero teslas.
if germans chose a route, they, walk. (ww2, manufacturing cars, end of nuclear power..)
so fuck you elon. we hate you so much.
Biomass may well be renewable, but I still don't think it counts as green.
Why not? Doesn't creating the biomass require sequestering carbon?
I just feel that if you're growing a load of trees, it's slightly more environmentally friendly to just let them carry on growing rather than chopping them into bits and burning them.
I mean I get it, it's a way to use those old coal power stations for something, but it should be something else we need to phase out.
Nice graph with no freaking labels.
Original chart source: https://www.energy-charts.info/downloads/Stromerzeugung_2024.pdf
Slide 17
Original chart source: https://www.energy-charts.info/downloads/Stromerzeugung_2024.pdf
Slide 17
UK for comparison (Average over year)
| GW | % | |
|---|---|---|
| Coal | 0.18 | 0.6 |
| Gas | 8.31 | 27.7 |
| Solar | 1.52 | 5.1 |
| Wind | 9.36 | 31.1 |
| Hydroelectric | 0.41 | 1.4 |
| Nuclear | 4.36 | 14.5 |
| Biomass | 2.15 | 7.1 |
Edit: Imports are the remainder
The sum of those percentages is 87.5%. So what's the rest, maybe import from France or Norway?
There's a joke in there about the power of hot air but I'm not confident enough in my knowledge of British politics to make it
Yes it's imports. Norway / France and Netherlands mainly.
Well, we've a single cable coming over from France that makes up about 3% (I think) of our total electricity supply. So "French Nuclear" should be a bigger entry in that table than coal, solar, hydro or bio. That's not the only import, either, so it's not completely impractical for the missing percentages to be imports.
That's an incredible amount of wind power.
Remember Berlin has a latitude of 52.5°. That puts it far north of the 49th parallel border.
My friend is dumb and doesn’t know the significance of the 49th parallel. Can you explain it to them?
US/Canadian border from roughly Vancouver to Winnipeg. Berlin is further north than Saskatoon, Karlsruhe is on the 49th parallel. The lot of mainland Europe is north of Albuquerque. In fact much of Tunesia is north of Albuquerque. Miami is on about the same parallel as Bahrain, Orlando on the same as New Delhi.
True, but climate in Central Europe is different to the US-Canada border.
I'm thinking solar is hard.
Yeah, you get even more clouds.
Sure, but Munich is south of the 49th parallel. I'm not sure how amenable it is to solar down there, but surely there are some areas that would work, no?
If baveria wasn't one of the worst NIMBY hell holes in the (known by me) world.
I love it, I like it like my new contract they send me with new prices for electricity (44% up)
You should change your provider. I do it every year because thats how you can save lots of money.
Frustrating that these private energy companies can charge whatever they want (cough market rate is a scam cough) and you need to chase teaser rates year to year if you want to keep your electricity prices down.
Shame Western Europe lacks state owned municipalities obligated to sell at cost, rather than a colidascope of private firms looking to maximize the margin on every kWh sold.
Sounds off, because renewbles are typically cheaper than the alternatives.
Any chance you got a 'fossil only' contract?
It sounds strange, but that's how it is, and it's Ökostrom. Luckily, I can change my provider when they raise the price, so it won't increase that much for me, but it will still go up, and I'm not the only one in my area because some friends of mine received the same 'greeting.' (To those who give dislikes, that won't change the facts no matter how much you would like it to.)
renewbles are typically cheaper than the alternatives
But firms will charge market rate regardless of the source of energy. This is a problem we have in Texas under ERCOT.
Green power can come in at such high rates that local power is practically free. But because the energy is bundled and auctioned with coal and gas across the grid at large, and because electricity is priced at the maximum auction rate, a shortage in one municipality that's filled with high priced fossil fuel power raises the retail price of energy into the hundreds or even thousands of dollars a MWh.
why would market electricity prices have any relation to what you pay on your power bill? turns out that companies will charge whatever they know they can, regardless of the cost of acquiring something to sell, should the cost of something be more than they know they can sell it for, they just won't sell it.
The idea that market prices influence what you pay for something is basically one of the main lies of supply side economics.
Are you sure its the actual cost of the electricity or the fact that many other costs are often bundled into your bill?
Like others have mentioned, change your provider. Prices are going down again, as there have been advancements on installing renewables. Energy prices at the end of 2024 were 30,5% cheaper than at the start of 2023 (Source. This is the case even though we are paying more for the modernization of the grid, because renewables are that much cheaper than other sources.
Wasn't Germany that weird one where 'gas' was labeled as 'renewable'? Or was that something diffrent?
Wasn’t Germany that weird one where ‘gas’ was labeled as ‘renewable’?
Biogas from decomposition is renewable. That definition is accepted internationally.
Doesn't mean it's ecological. There's a difference.
Depends on whether you grow crops specifically to turn into fuel or ferment waste that would otherwise ferment in the open.
The main point on the European level revolved around whether construction of gas plants should get access to some green fund or the other, to which the answer is yes because they'll always carry some on-demand load, and seasonal storage is bound to include syngas because we'll need that stuff anyway as chemical feedstock.
No, that was France labeling Nuclear as Renewable. Because, because it doesn’t emit CO2, I guess. Don’t know what „Re-New“ translates into French and I‘d be surprised if it is „Split Atoms“.
Fuck off, France did this in reaction to Germany trying to pass gas as green (not renewable!)
No, worse, they labeled it as green. Naziland never fails to be on the wrong side of history
Yes it was, but I can't find the sources now. It was some time after the recent invasion of Ukraine by the eastern hordes; titles were something like "Germany reclasified natural gas as renewable'. My memory fails me, so it may have been different gas and different purpose than electricity. Anyway, it came as a very poor taste.
In other news, Germany imports quite some percentage of its electricity from other countries, like nuclear-produced electricity from France. So, in a sense and to a degree, it outsources the emissions to other countries.
Edit: sources of both claims below.
In other news, Germany imports quite some percentage of its electricity from other countries, like nuclear-produced electricity from France. So, in a sense and to a degree, it outsources the emissions to other countries.
That is simply not true. You might get an update of the actual state of energy production AND imports vs exports here: https://www.pv-magazine.com/2025/01/03/germany-hits-62-7-renewables-in-2024-energy-mix-with-solar-contributing-14/
My memory fails me, so it may have been different gas and different purpose than electricity. Anyway, it came as a very poor taste.
Even this is not true or just blabla at least. It’s Biogas, gas made out of animals poo, plants and other degradable things.
I strongly suggest that you either check sources before posting a comment. Or just stay quite instead „there was something I heard somewhere…“
They're getting poorer and deindustrializing at a rapid pace.
The ironworks in Ruhrgebiet died a century ago, in case you didn't notice.
Electricity imports also rose to 24.9 TWh, driven by lower generation costs in neighboring countries during summer.
For the love of God, please just build nuclear instead of virtue signaling with solar panels while you import your energy needs.
All our nuclear plants are shut down and weren't maintained for further usage, than that few years ago when they were shut down, for decades. They are basically trash. Now just take a look at UK or France how cheap and easy it is to build new ones (when you can't sacrifice workers and environment like China). And then take a look at France's nuclear power production in recent heat summers. And finally take a look where that sweet little uranium is coming from when imported (Germany has none). And now give me a single good reason why investing in nuclear is better than investing in dirt cheap, decentralizeable renewables to cover future electricity needs.
The "just use nuclear" crowd is so dumb. They make it so obvious they have no idea what they are talking about. Which I would not mind on its own, but they always think they are the smartest people in the room and that's infuriating.
Btw French Nuclear Power Company went bankrupt last years. Because of this cheap Nuclear. It’s owned by the Government now. In South Corea the Nuclear company is due 150 Billion dollars. Bankrupt very soon. Sellafield the British nuclear dump expects costs of 136 Billion pounds until 2050. Already owned by the Government.
It’s so fucking cheap this nuclear.
There's no sense in spending limited public funding on nuclear now - renewables and storage is winning on all fronts.
Shutting down what nuclear existed was a costly mistake, but going down that path again is an even worse one
Germany has the EU's highest energy prices. Just saying.
Norway has one of the lowest. And they don't have only 62.7%.
99% of their energy comes from renewables.
And in the USA, some of the states with lowest prices have the highest % of renewables.
"This single thing is more expensive in this country" is a stupid way to compare prices from countries.
Norway has some of the lowest in Europe. Less than a third of Germany's prices. Norway is producing more (hydro) energy than it's able to use.
That's why it's exporting some of it to other countries today. Before Norway did this their prices were even lower.
Norway has thermal energy sources and lots of oil they can sell to subsidize other things.
Sure just saying, not trolling at all.
Solar drives energy prices down, not up. In the summer the energy price regularly goes negative because there is so much solar available.
And it isn't even remotely true, other countries have higher energy prices than Germany within the EU. The Netherlands for example has crazy high energy prices. And that's in absolute numbers, not even corrected for things like GDP.
Why is that?
Because the price we pay is determined by the most expensive source, that's to ensure low costing energy like wind and solar make the biggest profit and get expanded further and faster.
Because Germany is not at 100% renewable yet. Soon.
It's the coal they're burning.
