The only things ‘inevitable’ about ‘transitioning’ to wind and solar are rocketing power prices, load shedding and mass blackouts. Ask a German or South Australian.
Renewable energy zealots keep telling us that wind and solar are free and getting cheaper all the time. Germany puts paid to that lie, as does Denmark and South Australia, which each jockey for line honours in the world’s highest power prices stakes.
No country has squandered more treasure on giant windmills and an endless sea of solar panels than Germany.
For all that wanton environmental destruction, Germans get a meagre 2.5% of their primary energy demand satisfied by wind and solar. And in the mother of all ironies, contrary to the stated aim of the ‘Energiewende’, carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise.
Its nuclear-powered, next-door neighbour, France wins the low CO2 power generation competition by a mile – and makes a killing selling electricity to power-starved Germans, whenever the sun sets and/or calm weather sets in.
All in all, Germany’s (apparently) inevitable ‘transition’ to an all wind and sun powered future has been a total flop.
Adding insult to injury, German power prices have surged (again) and, in the midst of another bitter winter, Germans can expect more blackouts and load shedding as their grid groans under the burden of its suicidal attempt to run on chaotically intermittent wind and solar.
Here’s No Tricks Zone with an update on Germany’s power pricing and supply calamity.
Germany’s Energiewende (transition to green energies) is driving up prices
No Tricks Zone
Holger Douglas (Translated/edited by Pierre Gosselin)
26 January 2020
For a long time, electricity prices have known only one direction: upwards! Rising ever faster, ever more clearly. Now comes the shock for many families: The Federal Government has presented official figures in an answer to an inquiry from the FDP Free Democrats parliamentary group in the Bundestag and revealed the true extent of the electricity price increase.
320 euros extra annually per household
In the past ten years, the price of electricity for households and industry has risen by a third. According to the Augsburger Allgemeine, which quotes from the paper, the price of electricity rose by 35 percent between 2009 and 2019.
For a typical household with 4,000 kWh per year, this means 320 euros in additional costs for electricity alone. This is even more than the various comparison websites had previously calculated.
8% hike
BILD expresses how drastic it is: “The electricity price wave is sweeping over Germany! Now the energy giants Innogy, RheinEnergy and Vattenfall are also raising prices by eight percent”. Millions of households are affected.
Germany has Europe’s highest price for electricity, if not the world’s highest price. One kilowatt hour of electricity now costs on average 30.03 euro cents. The experts at the Verivox comparison portal expect that prices will continue to rise this year, for a simple reason: Germany is paying for the transition to green energies.
With the so-called EEG feed-in levy, every electricity consumer pays for the feed-in of unreliable and extremely expensive “renewable energies” and thus also pays for the destruction of Germany’s once previously reliable and inexpensive power supply.
No way around subsidies
No sensible person would install wind turbines on a large scale in Germany. The yield of electricity is simply too low and too unreliable. If it was reliable, it would not have to be propped up by subsidies.
Money for nothing
According to the German government, wind turbine operators alone received a total of 635 million euros in compensation in 2018 because they were unable to feed their electricity into the grid during times it was not needed.
This “compensation” will be even more drastic in 2019, because in the first quarter alone there were strong winds; wind turbines were able to produce large volumes of electricity – but when there was no demand for it, so it could not be used, not even given away to neighboring countries.
“Anti-social”
FDP politician Sandra Weeser explained: “We have an extremely anti-social redistribution here. The weakest citizens would be burdened with the electricity price just as much as the strongest.”
Ms Weeser also sees the attractiveness of Germany as a business location at risk: “With our high wage cost level, we cannot keep increasing the production costs of electricity if we want to keep industry in the country.
“Gigantic redistribution machine”
The so-called EEG feed-in program continues to prove to be a gigantic redistribution machine. This is once again attracting the profiteers onto the scene – as can be seen from the results of the solar tender of the Federal Network Agency. Tendered were 500 MW of capacity for solar plants, bids were submitted for a total of 1,344 MW. That is 2.7 times more than was needed. In mid-January, the agency awarded the contract to “121 bids for a solar capacity of 501 MW to be erected”.
Unsteady supply means inefficient use of backup plants
This means even more photovoltaic systems for ridiculously low hours of output and even higher EEG fees. And even more CO2 emissions from those conventional power plants that have to supply electricity when the sun does not shine because Germans have no desire to live without electricity. The very frequent, inefficient start-up and shut-down processes of these large power plants on standby also cause additional CO2 emissions. This increases operating costs and raises retail power prices for consumers.
No Tricks Zone
STOP THESE THINGS 
‘They are trying to fit an octopus into a jacket that only has 2 sleeves.’
Guess what Octopus Energy tells it potential UK customers:
Switch to affordable renewable energy online.
All our electricity comes from 100% renewable sources like sun, wind and water.
Yes, in their dreams. Intermittent, unreliable, grid destroying garbage that needs massive subsidies, for no return.
Reblogged this on ajmarciniak.
Firstly an observation, the above graph does not have Australia on it which seems strange considering Australia has one of the if not the highest priced energy.
So called ‘renewable’ energy in the form of wind Turbines and solar panels, as has been mentioned on this site many times and elsewhere is far from being a sensible process for the production of energy in a modern technological and industrial nation.
Presently there is a problem here in Australia within the States connected to the Eastern Grid the Nations largest energy Grid, and in South Australia in particular we have a situation, in that it has become disconnected from this massive Grid structure and this time not through any fault of its own – well that’s as far as we know.
However, while SA is now going to have to push through for around 2 weeks until the problem in Victoria has been fixed, it is highly likely SA will at times if we have calm days where the wind is not blowing strong enough to get those massive blades turning (to cause/continue to cause damage to the health of those living within their danger zone), to provide for its citizens, they will suffer energy poverty or even energy starvation.
If there is also cloud covering parts of the State and the addition/ inevitability of night fall, the situation will become even worse.
Yes we have some Gas to help out but not sufficient to run the State as a modern progressive society.
There is more evidence being provided that shows this ‘rnewable’ form of energy production is NOT SUITABLE for running a Nation or even a suburb.
They are trying to fit an octopus into a jacket that only has 2 sleeves.
The Grid systems used around the world were designed for the movement of a steady flow of energy from sources which were easily managed NOT erratic multiple individual turbines, solar panels, and what other forms of small scale energy they can find to call ‘renewable’.
They continue down this path because they know they cannot return to a system of distribution which began its demise at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. A system which non industrialised countries are desperately trying to overcome even today. But they have no other solution, except maybe storage in batteries which will need often regular replacement and cannot be re-charged if the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. Those that want us to believe they know what they are doing are running around like a plague of blind mice.
An example of the confused mess created by those who should know better is an article in The Adelaide Advertiser, dated 28 January 2020, by Chris Russell titled “Sunny weekends should give SA cheaper power”, which details the frantic attempt by the States Energy Minister, Dan van Holst Pellekaan to justify his incompetence and desire to bring the State to its knees while paying homage to the ‘renewable’s’ industry for doing it.
What is needed is to understand you learn more by looking at what went before and working to improve on it not by walking backwards into the future.
Everywhere this nightmare has infested needs to begin working to return to progressive, functioning for their citizens bodies ensuring their Nations move forward not backward to enrich all in their societies.
Jacqueline:
Pelican Brain is just continuing Labor’s policies.
Drive industry from the State,
Punish retailers, esp. the smaller ones.
Employ more bureaucrats (to fiddle employment figures).
Get more money (via GST & Grants) to keep the State afloat.
The major parties don’t care about SA except for the (diminishing) number of parliamentary seats. Should the clamour from the public in other States become too much, the share of the GST will be reduced and the whole pack of cards will collapse.
What do renewables run on? Wind &Sun? NO THEY run on SUBSIDIES – BILLIONS of dollars. Total waste of money, all they do is destabilize the grid and pollute the land.
The only thing “green” about renewable wind and solar is the money lining the pockets of industry insiders and politicians. Consumers will be forced to pay more for less reliable electricity and In order to adjust for the rising cost of electricity, companies will be forced to cut wages or relocate their factories to places where electricity is cheaper.
Reblogged this on Climate- Science.press.