By P Gosselin
The “world’s dumbest energy policy” is getting a lot dumber: German power production plummets 11.4% in first half of 2023
Since Germany shut down its remaining nuclear power plants earlier this year, it’s no surprise the country’s electricity generation has slumped and is now more heavily dependent on foreign imports.
Tichy’s Einblick here reports that in the first half of 2023, Germany generated 233.9 billion kilowatt hours of electricity. “Sounds like a lot, but it’s not: In fact, it’s 11.4% less than in the first half of 2022.”
Exports fall 18%
In the first six months of 2023, German exports of electric power fell 18.1%. “By contrast, our electricity imports have virtually exploded, by almost a third (+ 30.8%),” Tichy’s Einblick adds.
Keep in mind that Germany shut down its nuclear fleet of plants because of safety issues, in the wake of the Fukushima disaster, yet the country has no problems importing the same type of energy from neighboring countries like France.
Citing Germany’s Federal Statistics Office, destatis: “This import surplus of 7.1 billion kilowatt hours corresponds roughly to the amount of electricity that was still fed in by the three nuclear power plants in Q2 2022 (7.3 billion kilowatt hours).”
French nuclear power comes up the big winner
Currently, “French nuclear power plants there are running smoothly and at full speed again. Our electricity imports from France promptly increased more than from any other country: by a whopping 147.8%. In France alone, we bought 4.4 billion kWh in the first half of 2023,” reports Tichy’s Einblick. “We shut down our nuclear power plants. France generates well over two-thirds of its electricity from its nuclear power plants. What does all this tell us?”
It tell us that Germany’s energy policy is purely ideological and completely detached from economic sense and technical practicality. The only thing that matters is that only green energy gets produced in the country, no matter what the costs are.
But the worst is yet to come as gas imports are restricted and coal power plants are shutting down – all during a time when the demand for electricity is rising because of the electrification of mobility and the heating of homes with heat pumps, which in the future will be mandatory.
Germany appears to be filled with EcoNutZies proclaiming their piousness for NutZero in the great church of Gaia
Don’t forget to include the UK, in that statement.
Germany is ahead of us at the moment. A recent poll had 50% agreeing that Germany was on a downward spiral, and about 30% believed they would not be climbing back any time soon. In all the legacy media comments on the German decline, they never say that sky high energy costs are what is killing their manufacturing industry.
Frankly, you can include virtually all western democracies – the US, Canada, Oz, New Zealand, and most of Europe. Western “leaders” are tripping all over themselves as they race to out do each other’s “greenness” while destroying their economies. Our enemies are ROFL at our stupidity and are simply biding their time until we so weaken ourselves that we will be virtually defenseless when they decide to take some decisive action. As China and North Korea look to aid Russia in their takeover of Ukraine and help bleed the US (with our completely inept “leadership”) and those allies that are helping, that time may be much closer than we think. I hope I am terribly wrong.
I think your fears may materialise
Mao mandated a campaign to kill all sparrows and millions died from the resulting insect infestations and famine.
Germany’s leaders seem to be dumber than Mao.
Is Germany self flagellating for its sins of the Second World War?
In any case, the UK should obviously demand trillion-pound reparations from Germany for what it did in WW2 – after all, Caribbean states are to demand slavery reparations from the UK for much older involvement in slavery (ignoring the fact that the UK virtually stopped such activities).
Time to offer all former slaves and their next of kin free travel back to their homeland of origin in lieu of unaffordable reparations payments
Uhh, they’d all have to be exhumed first.
Biden’s Shovel Ready Work for his GND
The Trafficker-in-Chief, Joe Biden, is currently creating thousands of new slaves by throwing open the borders of the United States to terrorists who traffic women and children as sex slaves into the United States.
Does Joe get 10 percent for this?
He ought to get jail time for this, instead.
The UK stopped the international trade in slavery but left it to others to stop slavery in their own countries. Quite a lot of the slaves freed from the slave ships (which were then sold as prizes) actually joined the Royal Navy squadrons hunting down the rest of the ships. It does seem ironic that the descendants of slaves freed by the Royal Navy and those that joined the ships to free more slaves are now demanding reparations for being enslaved, mostly by other countries.
“Is Germany self flagellating for its sins of the Second World War?”
That is the best explanation I can give from the UK. But they’ve been doing it most of my life.
How can a nation of so often the finest engineers on the planet turn their back on nuclear power?
I just dunno, mate. You’ll have to ask a German.
It sounds like the German politicians should fire those nuclear reactors back up.
How crazy is it to shut down nuclear reactors because Japan had a tsumani?
The tsumani was just an excuse to shut them down.
Shutting down perfectly good nuclear reactors is the heighth of stupidity, especially for people who think we need to reduce CO2 production.
You are in Big Trouble, Germany. You have fools for political leaders and they are running your country into the ground, as fast as they can.
Green ideologues have net zero intelligence.
Economic seppuku, only in Europe.
The Germans once learned that if they take away basic necessities, people stop caring so much about who’s running the country and the decisions they’ve made. All they care about is their own security.
And it’s not like political officials will have to suffer from want. They’ll have access to every single kwth they could possibly use.
We see morons determined to sink a ship. They see security in knowing they’ll always be first in line for the lifeboats.
Once they start digging, they don’t know when to stop.
I tell people, “You know, the people running most of the governments around the world are in the process of shutting down all of the coal, oil, gas and nuclear fired power plants and they want to run the world economy with wind mills and solar panels.” And the just look at me.
Not most of the governments. Not China, not India…. etc. The mania is confined to the English speaking countries and Germany, and Germany is backing off. Everyone else is paying lip service only. Its only the English speaking countries that are actually full on implementing Net Zero, or trying to.
The most astonishing thing is the UK. Even when its obvious that its not working, and is just wasting billions, there is a total consensus of all political parties (except Reform), and almost all the mainstream media, for continuing, because climate and weather.
So you have the Met Office solemnly issuing health warnings when somewhere they have managed to find an 80 or 90F temperature reading in summer, you have the Guardian and BBC talking endlessly about global climate breakdown, whatever that is, and you have the political class seeming seriously to think that getting to a UK Net Zero is not only possible but important, and will have some effect on the global climate.
Its summer, quite a bit cooler than last summer, which was itself hot but in no way remarkable. And with summer comes the usual blocking high and calms, and guess what that does to wind power generation from the 28GW of wind.
http://www.gridwatch.co.uk/wind
Since August 22 it has been, with one short peak a bit higher, under 5GW. And a lot of those days under 1GW. What is making up the gap? Gas. And the political class keep proclaiming that more wind is going to deliver lower costs and energy independence. All its really doing is increase dependence on rapid start gas.
The latest offshore auction for wind farms didn’t get a single bid as the power price was too low. Where exactly are these low prices for wind?
Maybe they want to make horses transportation again.
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/10/1187224861/electric-vehicles-evs-cars-chargers-charging-energy-secretary-jennifer-granholm
That would be a good article for us to discuss -Story tip
Isn’t that the govt official travelling in an EV who had her entourage in ICE vehicles drive ahead to “reserve” charging stations for her? They used a gas powered car to block off the charging station preventing other EVs from using it.
Some optics are better than others.
Like the UK there were several days last week when wind disappeared from the grid in Germany
This is the cross border flows for Week 31 in Germany
It’s fairly horrifying to think that the UK us working towards 2.8GW of exposure to German shortfalls and surpluses via NeuConnect and the Viking Link, where Denmark is only the nominal transit country.
Green energy business plan: Buy high, sell low and make up for it on volume.
As each day passes another story of energy policy lunacy gets reported.
Despite this daily update of failure and despond the Net Zero advocates continue delivering closures and destruction of our once essential reliable power plants.
The puzzle is, why do we continue to allow the Luddites of the twenty first century the freedom to keep doing this?
Will it take the same course as happened when the communist era started to came to an end in the USSR. Will people be shot for seeking freedom from the insanity. Will those looking to warm their homes with any fuel they can find be locked up in some concentration camp for daring to operate as a caring human being.
How much longer will we allow the lunatics the freedom to run the Alarmist asylum they have created?
It is said that in a democracy the people get the government they deserve. They need only stop voting for the idiots that the idiotic party system throws up.
EV (electronic voting) doesn’t help.
As Comrade Stalin pointed out, it is more important who counts the votes than what the votes are for.
Would that be the earthquake risk, the tsunami risk or the emergency generators located in the basement flooding risk?
I thought they’d been left outside, mounted on pallets.
What happened at Fukushima?
Well they clearly were not located away from flood risk.
On reflection, of historical nuclear power station incidents, there seems to be a common theme to their cause. Stupidity!
After the Fukushima incident, and hearing of Germany’s ‘knee jerk’ response, I could only conclude that there was a second version of stupidity.
Don’t you think that Merkel, having grown up in the GDR, might have had ulterior motives?
That thought has crossed my mind 👍
When France sells power to Germany, does it charge the same rate as what it charges to its French customers?
You’d think they’d charge at least as much as any German generator, whether that is more or less than the French pay is hard to ascertain.
I’m sure they charge whatever the market will bear. Electricity is highly fungible. You have to use it while you make it, so it’s the most elastic supply/demand market there is. You can ramp up or down your generation capacity, but there’s a hard limit on both ends. Look at the Australian spot market prices when things get tight.
They would sell it on a need pricing situation. If they have surplus generation that can’t be curtailed, they sell it at lower rates but if they need to buy it to make up for a shortfall, they pay a premium for it
Each bidding zone has its own price for each trading period. Here’s a map showing prices for 19:00-20:00 for 12 September. As you can see there are big differences caused by limits on connection capacity. EU Market Coupling rules ensure that links are operated “optimally” so that gaming the system by preventing export to jack up local prices is in theory prevented. Arbitrage profits will accrue according to trades made over time. Some trade will have been done ahead of time, probably at rather lower differentials, so the profit will be mainly with the purchasing company. Where links are constrained, the owner of the link capacity can extract an economic rent from the price difference. Suppliers with unsold surpluses can benefit from big margins in tight markets.
Because the supply picture is so weather dependent it becomes harder to hedge positions in advance, and prices become very volatile. Winning at electricity trading requires top notch information systems and brains to interpret what may happen. Algorithms will only take you so far.
Thanks to our beloved president’s propensity to “emmerder” the populace, this is not the case. French electricity is sold cheaper to the Germans than to the French people. No further comments.
H/T to Bob Hope:
“I guess the French nuclear engineers are better than the German ones”
until march this year the German grid supplied up to 5GW to the French French National Grid status (templar.co.uk)
this was because so many French reactors were being “fixed”. As the fixed reactors came online you will note that French supply exceeds demand. This is of course not acceptable but reactors are difficult to control to the required peaks and troughs. The European grid including UK will gladly accept most of this cheap power from France. This is the way an electric grid should work.
I do not believe the German nukes were taken offline because of their failure – it was a population led distrust of nukes after Fukushima.
Mr. half: “As the fixed reactors came online you will note that French suply exceeds demand. This is of course not acceptable….” Excess supply is “not acceptable”, meanwhile the “green energy” you prefer never exceeds demand??!! Failing to produce baseload and crashing the grid, so much better. It’s what you prefer.
Ummm . . . I don’t believe the facts support that statement.
According to a nuclear power plant engineer, who seems credible (see https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/v3nra/how_quickly_can_you_modulate_the_power_output_of/ ) single reactor power output ramp rates up to 33MW/hr are safe and the reactors are designed to “load follow” power swings of up to 40%.
And this:
“OPERATIONAL FLEXIBILITY
“Nuclear reactors are known for their ability to provide constant power but their output can also be modified to meet certain grid demands.
“Operators can reduce power output by limiting the amount of steam that goes through a turbine to create electricity, or they can use control systems to slow down the nuclear reaction in the reactor.
“France has been doing this for years to match daily and seasonal power demands and reactors in the U.S. Northwest and Canada flexibly operate each spring to accommodate additional hydropower on the grid.”
— https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/3-ways-nuclear-more-flexible-you-might-think
But that is not how the reactors operated as you can readily verify from the Gridwatch French data. Nuclear output is varied seasonally (in the US too) by scheduling maintenance and refuelling shutdowns for low demand seasons. There is very little intraday flex at all.
““.. but reactors are difficult to control to the required peaks and troughs.””
And of course, wind and solar are??
You are a silly little child..
wind and solar generation can easily be lowered (and raised to their generation level which may be insufficient).
nukes do not like their core temperatures changing – things fatigue and fail. the French do not try to modulate reactor outputs more than a few %. This would have been visible on the link for the time they were all functional there were small 5GW changes from peak to trough of demand, and certainly no attempt to follow peaks during football games etc.
Germany has had a long-standing anti-nuclear stance, starting in the 1970’s, and continuing today. Despite building some reactors in the 80’s, protests stopped further building and research, and then Chernobyl caused Germany to impose a long-term phase-out of the reactors. Fukushima accelerated the process slightly but not by much.
Germany seems to have a tradition of brilliant engineering being hobbled by their political leadership. Leading nuclear advocate, Mark Nelson has called Germany’s reactors the finest on planet Earth. Back in WW II, Hitler prevented the best use for the ground breaking Me-262 jet fighter.
Not mentioned in the above article, but I’m glad to help out here:
The wholesale price of electricity in France for the first half of 2023 averaged 111.3 euros per MWh (ref: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1267546/france-monthly-wholesale-electricity-price/ ). Assuming Germany got a 10% discount for a “quantity buy” of electricity from France for the full six months, they still would have paid about 441 million euros (around $476 million USD at an average exchange rate of $1.08 dollar:euro over that same time interval) for the 4.4 billion kWh they imported from France according to the above article.
WOW! . . . talk about a “built-in” trade deficit.
And it’ll get worse. As the TV series GOT advised, “winter is coming” to Earth.
Germany would likely be paying a premium these days because it tends to import at times of peak demand and low renewables supply. Conversely, its exports now earn little because they occur at times of general renewables surppus across much of the Continent.
“Winter is coming.” Indeed; the Old Farmer’s Almanac is predicting a long, cold, snowy winter this year – might be a painful one.
NOAA has predicted that the Sunspot Number will start dropping in 2025 and will reach zero and stay there at least until 2040 when their predictions end. Cooler sunspots are linked to hotter areas and fewer sunspots mean less solar output and a colder Earth. The last time this happened was in the 1600’s when millions died from famine and the period was name the Little Ice Age.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/predicted-sunspot-number-and-radio-flux
“But the worst is yet to come as gas imports are restricted and coal power plants are shutting down – all during a time when the demand for electricity is rising because of the electrification of mobility and the heating of homes with heat pumps, which in the future will be mandatory.”
And people keep saying we (skeptics) are winning. No, we’re losing, badly.
Last time Germany was backed into a corner they built a mighty war machine and made a mess. This time, they’re backing themselves into a corner and they won’t have any electricity to build anything. Who is John Galt?
Neither WW1 or WW2 involved Germany being backed into a corner – both times involved them trying to expand outwards into other peoples countries. If you’re trying to tell me that the EU may have inherited the same attitude and some kind of history may be repeating then that’s a different matter.
Germany being completely ideological and divorced from reality – history repeats…
I think Germany is doing the world a favor trying to be the first country off the cliff and find out what’s at the bottom.
Unfortunately the strategy seems to be to have everyone rush off the cliff at once.
The US is lagging behind the pack somewhat because of our domestic oil and natural gas industries, which may save us from the worst of it.
Third world countries like India already know what’s at the bottom of the cliff, they’re just trying to climb out of the abyss of energy poverty, and don’t want to go back there.
I don’t understand how people can be so stupid and still breathe.
Some years ago, I met a young German couple. They were green journalists covering the story of a Texas town that just signed long term power contracts for “green power”. (Georgetown, north-west of Austin in the heart of Texas.)
During the discussion, I held that only nuclear was a long term replacement for fossil fuels. They discounted nuclear because of waste disposal. I pointed out that the French found it manageable, so that proves that the French are smarter than the Germans.
The Devil made me say it. (The Germans are contemptuous of the French. But, then, it works both ways.)
And the Texas town with “green power”? The projections of Obama’s sky-rocketing fossil fuel prices failed. The city was locked into expensive renewable power contracts, so the voters had power bills several hundred dollars higher than neighboring municipalities
The mayor had run as a Republican. But, at he time he told a Republican activist that “the Democrats love me now so I don’t need the Republicans any more”. He was not reelected. Irony. Hubris. Nemesis. Victor Davis Hanson is a favorite pundit of mine.