Renewable energies in Germany

For the third year, ESS has participated in the International exchange program held by Gateway Technical College in Racine. This year ESS hosted two students, Laura Strauss of Bad Soden-Salmuenster, Germany and Jan Hofmann of Maintal, Germany. They spent 4 days at ESS learning many  aspects of the business. One of their "assignments" was to write and post on our blog, a story about the German renewable energies and some current statistics. They did lots of research and writing, in between all of the other activities, and came up with the wonderful blog post. Please enjoy their blog and many thanks to Gateway for having this unique program. 

The contingent of renewable energy in Germany was in 2010 17 % of the whole electrical power usage. There was an increase of the energy usage from the biogas and the photovoltaics in 2010.


Chancellor Merkel wants to accelerate the development of renewable energies. In Germany the ministry of environment is working at the “Renewable Energy Act” to make it more effective. Up to the year 2020 Chancellor Merkel wants a contingent of renewable energy of 40 % of the whole electrical power usage.

The ministry of environment made some proposals for better integrating the renewable energies into the electrical market. The government wants to create more incentives to involve the renewable energies into the electrical market.

In case of turning off all the atomic power plants, Germany has to develop in renewable energy all the time.

 
 
Wind energy in Germany



At the turn of the half-year 2011 it is the first time the percentile part of renewable energies in Germany exceed 20 %. For Germany it is a very delightful development and they try to be a good example for the use of renewable energies in the future.

It is caused by the fact that Germany has to revolutionize the energy generation because of the decision to phase out the nuclear power. So the Government had to react and started to encourage these kinds of energies more than ever before.
The biggest part of renewable energies in Germany is the wind energy (6.5 % of the whole energy consumption). With that wind energy is ahead of solar energy and hydro power. In Germany there are more than 22,000 wind turbines located in the federal areas.
The next step of the German government will be to facilitate the offshore wind energy. They declared the target to install wind turbines with a capacity of 25,000 MW by 2030. This project would also produce new jobs for about 7,000 workers.
Some German companies that manufacture wind turbines:

- AREVA Wind GmbH
- Avantis
- BARD Holding
- Enercon (biggest manufacturer of onshore wind turbines)

Solar Energy in Germany

The solar energy still enjoys an enormous growth in Germany, 94% of the Germans estimate the extension of renewable energies is very important. And solar energy belongs to this category.


The contingent of solar energy in 2010 was 2 % of the whole electrical power. So it’s twice as much than the year before.

Germany is one of the top photovoltaics installer in the world. The PV capacity of May 2011 was more than 18,000 MW. Some market analysts expect that the contingent of solar energy could reach 25 % by 2050.

The ”Renewable Energies Act” of 2009 also encouraged this development. “Renewable Energies Act” requires that every new built house has to use one renewable energy technique. And in Germany many people decided for the solar energy because of the efficient way to get energy. Furthermore, the house owners can earn money with their photovoltaic facility, because the not used energy will be injected into the energy grid and gain money for every kilowatt hour.

In fact, with all new technologies and a bigger demand starting after 2009, the costs have the potential of being reduced up to 30 % for the manufacture and the installation of solar systems.

Per the forecast from experts, the delivery of electricity from solar energy will reach the delivery of electricity from offshore wind turbines in 2014.

In the long run solar energy will be one of the cheapest ways to generate energy.

Posted by Laura Strauss of Bad Soden-Salmuenster, Germany and Jan Hofmann of Maintal, Germany