Germany to Surpass 50 Percent Renewable Power This Year, Official Says - Yale Environment 360
Germany to Surpass 50 Percent Renewable Power This Year, Official Says - Yale E360
A rooftop solar array in Alsfeld, Germany. UuMUfQ via Wikipedia
Germany is on track to generate more than half of its electricity from renewables this year, an official said Monday.
Speaking at a conference organized by the Heinrich Boell Foundation, economy minister Robert Habeck said that Germany has seen a boom in renewable power, Reuters reported.
In the first half of this year, renewables, including hydropower and biomass, accounted for 52 percent of power production in Germany, Europe’s largest economy. If trends continue, 2023 will mark the first full year in which the nation generates more than half of its power from renewable energy, largely wind and solar.
This year, Germany will add at least 9 gigawatts to its 67 gigawatts of solar capacity, with much of the growth driven by rooftop installations. It will also add around 3 gigawatts to its 58 gigawatts of onshore wind.
Unlike these power sources, offshore wind continues to stutter. The sector remains frustrated by supply chain issues that have led to shortages of some components.
Habeck emphasized that Germany is still not on pace to reach its goal of 80 percent renewable power by 2030. The country will need to accelerate its buildout of renewables to keep up with rising electricity demand, particularly as a growing number of electric cars connect to the grid.
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Renewable energy sources — once the fuel of the future, then practical in specific, narrow applications — are increasingly economic mainstream sources of power generation. Hydropower was long the mainstay of U.S. renewable electricity generation, although wind power surpassed hydro for the first time in 2019, and solar continues its rapid growth. The continued growth of wind and solar, with their fluctuations, is tied in part to improvements in storage technology: batteries.