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Summer Interim Balance: Solar, wind and gas increasingly displace coal from the market

2019-08-28T13:04:59.495Z


This summer, very little electricity was generated from coal. Instead, experts registered a large increase in solar and wind power - as well as gas.



A strong plus in terms of renewable energies and a significant decline in electricity from coal-fired power plants - that's the first summer balance sheet of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE. According to his calculations, wind turbines and photovoltaic systems fed together 39.3 terawatt hours of electricity into the public grid from June to August. That was a good ten percent more than in the summer months of last year.

Significantly less electricity than in the summer of 2018, however, produced lignite and coal power plants, said the institute. The amount of brown coal electricity fed into the public grid was more than a third lower than in the previous year, at just over 21.6 terawatt hours in the summer of 2019. The coal-fired power, at eight terawatt hours, was even 50 percent below the value of the summer of 2018. In contrast, electricity generation from gas rose by almost 50 percent.

"Electricity generation in the last three months has been very exciting: gas prices and stock market prices have been low and CO2 certificate prices have been high," said Bruno Burger of the Fraunhofer Institute. This has led to brown and hard coal fired power plants being forced out of the market and export surpluses to be reduced as well. Due to the lower CO2 emissions of the gas-fired power plants and the favorable gas prices, there has been a shift from coal to gas.

Wind power expansion in the crisis

There was also strong growth in solar energy in June. For the first time, photovoltaic was even the strongest source of energy in a single month. In total, solar power generation was 19.3 terawatt hours from June to August, a good four percent more than in 2018. According to ISE calculations, wind turbines supplied just under 20 terawatt hours of electricity during this period. Here, the plus was even close to 20 percent, because the wind in July was much stronger than in the same month last year.

According to the Agora think tank, the increase in solar power generation is also a consequence of the addition of new solar power plants in the first half of 2019 with a capacity of two gigawatts. "Solar power is now not only one of the cheap ways to generate electricity, it is also absolutely necessary to create the energy transition in Germany and to combat the climate crisis," said Agora Director Patrick Graichen. Therefore, the still existing expansion cover of 52 gigawatts away as soon as possible. "This brand could be reached next year, then the expansion would come to an abrupt halt," warned Graichen.

There are already big problems with the expansion of wind power. From the beginning of January to the end of June, all in all, there were only 35 new wind turbines added all over Germany. It was the lowest new build rate since the year 2000.

The expansion of renewable energies is therefore particularly in the focus, because Germany is to get out of coal by 2038 from the generation of electricity. In the coal regions in North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt still hang thousands of jobs on the coal. That is why the Federal Cabinet wants to pass a bill on billions aid for structural change in the coal regions on Wednesday.

Among other things, the draft deals with the distribution of up to € 14 billion "for particularly significant investments" in lignite mining areas. In order to avoid having to save on other projects of the Federal Government in favor of the areas affected by the coalition, the plans provide for additional "reinforcements" for the ministries.

The decision comes shortly before the state elections in the East, where many people are affected by the coalition exit. Thus, a new state parliament is elected on Sunday in Brandenburg and Saxony.

Source: spiegel

All business articles on 2019-08-28

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