kravietz 🦇Mar 14

Wow, who would have expected a Dunkelflaute in March? But here it is:

  • #Germany - the “energy transformation leader with the most renewables in Europe” - 604 gCO2eq/kWh
  • #Poland - old coal baseline country that is heavily investing in wind and building its first nuclear power plant - 582 gCO2eq/kWh
  • #France - the hopeless case of old, legacy #nuclear that has “no future” and “contributes nothing to decarbonisation” (literal quotes) - 38 gCO2eq/kWh

It’s not a typo, the last number is really “38”, that is 16x less than the first number. And the whole point of #decarbonisation is to emit less CO2.

Show threadBjoern MichaelsenMar 15
@kravietz So your theory is that people think solar panels would generate power at 9PM in March -- well after dusk -- and are now surprised this isnt the case?
Show threadkravietz 🦇Mar 15

@Sweetshark

It was the same at 16:00 that say

https://agora.echelon.pl/objects/e7155fad-34e6-494e-9e5e-cf54033e891b

kravietz 🦇 (@[email protected])

Electricity generation today 16:15 GMT#Germany 535 gCO2eq/kWh#Poland 553 gCO2eq/kWh#France 28 gCO2eq/kWhSuch a puzzling situation, what could be the difference between these three European countrie...

Show threadBjoern MichaelsenMar 15
@kravietz https://energy-charts.info/charts/power/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&week=11 <- better source, showing the problem: too much lignite -- as hard coal was decommissioned first to protect jobs in the east of Germany.
Energy-Charts

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Show threadkravietz 🦇Mar 15

@Sweetshark

Makes perfect sense. And nuclear power was decommissioned to protect… what, climate? 🤔

Show threadBjoern MichaelsenMar 15

@kravietz Nuclear was decommissioned because even the plant owners didnt want to do the repairs to keep them running as they were lacking maintenance for decades due to the phase out commited to after Fukushima in 2011 under Merkel.

Which wouldnt be a problem, if two things would not have happened:
* the Altmaier-Knick severely hampering #renewables in 2012
* #Suedlink / #Suedostlink being sabotaged by conservative politicians in Bavaria delaying needed network capacity

Show threadkravietz 🦇Mar 15

@Sweetshark

commited to after Fukushima in 2011 under Merkel

Makes perfect sense, as Germany is well-known seismic area with tons of tsunamis.

the Altmaier-Knick severely hampering renewables in 2012

But Germany never lacked renewables capacity in terms of installed power, did it? Germany has 100 GW solar, 70 GW wind, 6 GW hydro and - let’s pretend it is also low-carbon - 10 GW biomass. Yet, 24/7 electricity supply is still ensured by coal and fossil gas.

delaying needed network capacity

You mean 7000 km of high voltage lines that needed to be upgraded countrywide and using as much land and resources as a highway?

Show threadBjoern Michaelsen
@kravietz > But Germany never lacked renewables capacity in terms of installed power, did it?
The north has decent capacity in recent years, the south didnt. This is now slowly changing because solar so dirt cheap, so the south is adding solar capacity, reducing the need for a north-south flow.
Mar 15 at 7:46pmWeb
Show threadkravietz 🦇Mar 15

@Sweetshark

But that only means that instead of having 400% of the installed capacity versus average consumption, Germany will have say 500%, but it will still need these coal and gas plants for times such as yesterday, when there’s no sun and little wind?

Show threadBjoern MichaelsenMar 15

@kravietz Still makes sense, given how insanely cheap solar has become. And neither the old coal and especially not the old nuclear plants would be able to do the load-following to help.
That is on network capacity and gas peakers only (Same for France when its to hot for its nuclears: it then needs needs both network capacity and German gas peakers to fill the gap).

In the shared Franco-German net with enough capacity, the mix -- except for the coal and esp. lignite -- is actually decent. That might change with France moving to more renewables -- but by that time network capacity will be helped by various energy storage options including long-term #greengas.

Show threadBjoern MichaelsenMar 15

@kravietz (And the "old nuclear plants cant do load following" where the other reason why at least the _northern_ plants where shut down: They were only profitable by forcing wind power of the grid as both where competing over the limited network capacity to the south too often. So even economically, of the remaining reactors only Isar2 somewhat still made sense taking the whole net into account.)

In a nuclear + renewables net that has gas peakers "only" to fill the gap, it is in the interest of both the nuclear and the renewable providers to have enough capacity to minimize the use of gas.

Show threadkravietz 🦇Mar 15

@Sweetshark

Still makes sense, given how insanely cheap solar has become

I don’t this makes sense because 10, 100 or 1000 GW of solar produces zero electricity when there’s no sunlight. So at that time you still need a secondary source or storage. But at a sunny day you have the opposite problem with overproduction, which you either solve by capping or… by other prospective solutions worded in future sense, so if they don’t materialise you still do capping and still need that secondary source.

Also, solar is only cheap if you talk about the shiny panels arriving into EU from China, where they are produced using electricity mostly from coal, forced labour, $10/ton CO2 certificates (vs $70/ton in EU) and zero concern about environment protection. And that’s precisely why their manufacturing was all outsourced to China, because if they were done in EU, with all our environmental and labour protection standards, they would be… too expensive.

What a great way to “lead” the global energy transformation by just buying stuff from China 😂

Show threadBilliglarperMar 16

@kravietz @Sweetshark

Please show the calculations to your claims.

Show threadkravietz 🦇Mar 16

@billiglarper

You need a calculation to prove that 1 GW PV times 0 solar irradiation produces 0 Wh of electricity? 🤔

Okay:

E = P * I

Where E is the amount of electricity (Wh), P is nominal power (W) and I is solar irradiation.

@Sweetshark

Show threadBilliglarperMar 16

@kravietz @Sweetshark

You claimed "if they were done in EU, with all our environmental and labour protection standards, they would be… too expensive."

You can't substantiate this claim. Thank you.

Show threadkravietz 🦇Mar 16

@billiglarper

Wait, but if this is false then why are they imported from China over tens of thousands of kilometers rather than simply produced here, while EU producers are struggling?

Indeed, according to incomplete statistics from DataBM.com, since the second half of last year, at least nearly 20 European PV companies have reported financial difficulties or even bankruptcy, with four already exiting the region.

https://www.solarbeglobal.com/european-pv-firms-struggle-some-shift-focus-to-us/

@Sweetshark

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Show threadBilliglarperMar 16

@kravietz @Sweetshark

Still no numbers.

I decided a while ago to not do sarcasm on Mastodon. But your "Why are products imported from China 😱" post got me close.

Show threadkravietz 🦇Mar 16

@billiglarper

I’m not sure if you have learning difficulties or just intentionally ignoring all the numbers already supplied? One factor I’ve mentioned is the cost of CO2 emissions, which in China is around $10/ton while in EU it’s now around $70/ton. Which means for CO2 intensive industries it’s 7x more expensive to operate in EU than in China.

Cost of electricity? $0.116/kWh in China (60% coal powered) versus $0.288/kWh in Germany. Any electricity-intensive operations are therefore 2x more expensive.

If, on top of that, you add EU labour protection versus China use of forced labour, high environmental protection standards vs very low in China, and Chinese state subsidies versus very low EU import tariffs, then it becomes quite clear why PV is cheap only when manufactured in China, while EU manufacturers are “struggling”.

P.S. I’m not calling for EU abandoning our standards, quite the opposite - I call for sustaining them in EU while protecting our industry from unfair competition from countries not implementing them. What’s the point of “labour protection” laws if you then import goods from a country that uses forced labour, and your own work places disappear, thus leaving nothing to protect?

@Sweetshark

Show threadBjoern MichaelsenMar 16
@kravietz
Effective industrial electricity is below 12 ct/kwh currently in Germany:
https://www.smard.de/page/home/topic-article/444/215830/entwicklung-der-industriestrompreise
@billiglarper
SMARD | Entwicklung der Industriestrompreise

Show threadBilliglarperMar 16

@Sweetshark

Don't bother.

Minimum sustainable PV module price is 15.9 €c/Wp in China, 16.5 €c/Wp in south-east asia, and would be 25.5 €c/Wp for a fully EU-made PV module.

Ten years ago, the price of modules was still at 60 €c/Wp.

The price difference is notable enough to import modules from China, but not large enough that production in EU would make PV uncompetitive as a power source.

https://api.solarpowereurope.org/uploads/SPE_Reshoring_Solar_Manufacturing_to_Europe_Report_Sep_2025_6b1a0ad5da.pdf

Ideologues like
@kravietz like their murmuring, but don't care about numbers

Show threadkravietz 🦇Mar 15

@Sweetshark

by that time network capacity will be helped by various energy storage options

I will kindly request that each time you hear such a phrase using future tense you read this article:

https://krvtz.net/en/posts/ideological-origins-of-energiewende.html

Because that’s precisely how in 2011 Germany engineered the consensus that nuclear phase-out and rapid decarbonisation are possible: by making lots of dubious assumptions in (then) future tense, which never materialised.

Ideological origins of "Energiewende"

Germany's one time famous #Energiewende (energy transition) program has been blamed with gradually pushing the country into the hands of #Russia gas dependency, rather high CO2 intensity of German ele

Infrastructure and Application Security