Germany’s PV solar sources generate half of national power demand

27 May 2012 Geoff Zeiss

Germany’s photovoltaic (PV) solar power generating sources produced power at a rate of 22 GW, meeting almost half of national electricity demand at midday on Saturday, May 26.  This level of power generation would meet a third of demand on a workday.  Currently Germany gets about 20 percent of its total annual power from renewable sources including solar, wind, and biomass.  

Germany was one of the first countries to implement a feed-in-tariff program, in which power companies are subsideized to pay higher rates for distributed renewable energy sources.  According to a 2012 report by the Environment Ministry, German power consumers have about € 4 billion per year added to their electricity bills for solar power, according to a 2012 report by the Environment Ministry.

Germany added 7.5 GW of installed solar power generation capacity in 2011 and 1.8 GW more in the first quarter for a total of 26 GW capacity.  Even RWE, long a hold out on solar power, has announced that it plans to invest in PV farms in southern Europe.  Germany’s energy intensity, energy use per GDP, decreased by over 3% in 2011.

I remember that about two years ago on at about 5pm on Sunday May 23, 2010, renewable energy set another record, in Texas when wind generation reached about 6.7GW, about 20% of Texas’ total state power demand.

Geoff Zeiss

Geoff Zeiss

Geoff Zeiss has more than 20 years experience in the geospatial software industry and 15 years experience developing enterprise geospatial solutions for the utilities, communications, and public works industries. His particular interests include the convergence of BIM, CAD, geospatial, and 3D. In recognition of his efforts to evangelize geospatial in vertical industries such as utilities and construction, Geoff received the Geospatial Ambassador Award at Geospatial World Forum 2014. Currently Geoff is Principal at Between the Poles, a thought leadership consulting firm. From 2001 to 2012 Geoff was Director of Utility Industry Program at Autodesk Inc, where he was responsible for thought leadership for the utility industry program. From 1999 to 2001 he was Director of Enterprise Software Development at Autodesk. He received one of ten annual global technology awards in 2004 from Oracle Corporation for technical innovation and leadership in the use of Oracle. Prior to Autodesk Geoff was Director of Product Development at VISION* Solutions. VISION* Solutions is credited with pioneering relational spatial data management, CAD/GIS integration, and long transactions (data versioning) in the utility, communications, and public works industries. Geoff is a frequent speaker at geospatial and utility events around the world including Geospatial World Forum, Where 2.0, MundoGeo Connect (Brazil), Middle East Spatial Geospatial Forum, India Geospatial Forum, Location Intelligence, Asia Geospatial Forum, and GITA events in US, Japan and Australia. Geoff received Speaker Excellence Awards at GITA 2007-2009.

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