Germany's new record: 50.6% of energy per day received from solar panels

Germany has broken the record for the share of energy received from solar panels. On the day of June 9, 2014, 23.1 GWh of energy from solar cells arrived in the national grid, which amounted to 50.6% of daily consumption, the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Fraunhofer ISE) said.

The record is set on a day off when consumption is minimal, but it is still a significant achievement for the energy sector.

In June 2014, Germany broke a few more records on solar energy. So, between 13:00 and 14:00 hours on June 6, 24.24 gigawatts were removed from all photocells in the country. And for the entire week of June 2-8, 1.26 TWh.

Germany was previously considered one of the world leaders in nuclear power production (140 TWh / year), but after the Fukushima accident in 2011, the government decided to completely abandon nuclear power plants. Eight stations were stopped immediately, and the rest are planned to be closed before 2022.

Now Germany is considered the leader in the production of renewable energy, not nuclear. About as many solar power plants are installed in this country as in all other countries of the world combined. For comparison, in the USA only 0.2% of all energy is received from solar panels.

About 90% of all solar panels in Germany are located on the roofs of houses. They are installed even in small villages, farms, factories, office buildings, but especially in the private sector. Modern architects even design their houses so that the roof faces south .



The example of Germany proves that renewable energy sources can cover a substantial part of the needs of even such a large country. The generation of solar energy is seasonal, but combines well with wind turbines, which gives a generally stable flow. For example, statistics for January-May 2014 show a completely stable monthly output from solar panels and wind turbines, in total.



Unfortunately, the boom in solar energy in Germany has an unpleasant side effect: the highest energy cost in Europe for the population. Almost 7 million households in the country spend 10% or more of their total income in payment for electricity, which experts call “energy poverty”, when people are forced to save even small things and deny themselves something.

One way or another, but the problem of energy supply from renewable sources needs to be solved not only in Germany, but in the whole world. One option is to install a large number of solar panels in the Sahara desert ( DESERTEC project ).

On the mapred indicates the area that the batteries need to cover to meet the energy needs of the whole world (left square), Europe (middle square) or only Germany (right square).



This option is much more economical than covering solar panels with roads .