Graph of Day: Germany reaches 51% renewables

Germany reached 51 per cent renewable energy share for its electricity generation in the last week, extending the extraordinary results for the year to date.

As we reported on Tuesday, renewable energy accounted for 41 per cent of electricity generation in March, a record level for the month – while for the full year the share has totalled 36.5 per cent.

This first chart above shows the result for week 15, which was not actually the highest week of the year so far – that was 53 per cent reached in week eight.

Wind accounted for 29.4 per cent of all electricity generation for the week, providing the most amount of power from any energy source, while solar was at 8.6 per cent, nearly overtaking both nuclear and hard coal.

The chart below shows the total for the year to date, with solar at 4.9 per cent (most of the year has been winter or early spring) and wind at 18.9 per cent.

This other graph below – also from the excellent energy graphs at the Fraunhofer Institute’s energy charts website, shows the total generation in the first quarter, along with the changes over the previous year, and percentage increases.