Renewables take top share in German power mix – a first

Renewables International

During the first nine months of 2014, non-hydro renewables increased their electricity production by 8.6 TWh or 9% compared to the same period in the previous year. Since all other power sources were down, this increase was enough to make non-hydro renewables the number one power source in Germany for the first time.

As reported at the beginning of the month, “renewables take top share of German power supply in first,” as Bloomberg put it. Today, we visualize the data.

According to data provided by the Fraunhofer ISE, renewable energy sources produced a total of 116 TWh of electricity during the first 9 months of the year. The majority of this renewable electricity came from non-hydro renewables. Collectively wind power, photovoltaic solar power and a variety of biomass sources (including biogas, solid biomass and the biogenic share of waste incineration) provided 104 TWh. These sources increased their output by 8.6 TWh or 9% compared to the same period last year. Hydropower, on the other hand, saw a significant year to year decline of 6.5 TWh or 33%. Six of the nine months in question have seen below average precipitation and as a consequence hydro power only contributed 13 TWh to the power supply. This kind of deviation from the average is however not unusual and last happened in 2011. None the less, Germany being a bit less rainy this year reduced the overall gain of renewables significantly to only 2.1 TWh so far.

While all non-renewable sources significantly declined on a year to year basis (see chart above), they  still dominated the German power supply with a total of 262 TWh. Lignite supplied 103 TWh of electricity to the grid, followed by 70 TWh from hard coal and 66 TWh from nuclear power. Electricity from natural gas was down by 5.7 TWh, supplying only 23 TWh. This puts natural gas power production on track for the fifth consecutive year of decline in 2014.

Non-hydro renewables rise to the top

Due to the increase in renewable generation and the decline in fossil generation, non-hydro renewables (104 TWh) have managed to dethrone lignite power (103 TWh) temporarily as the number one power source in Germany. Since most countries do not make a distinction between lignite and other types of coal when discussing electricity data, the symbolism of this Energiewende milestone needs a little further explanation.

Germany imports most of the primary energy sources it needs to run its economy. There are simply no relevant amounts of oil or gas stuck in the ground below Germany and even hard coal mining will end in 2018 as decade long subsidies are phased out. This makes lignite the only abundant domestic source of fossil energy. Due to its properties, lignite is nowadays almost exclusively used to generate electricity in huge thermal power stations in close proximity to massive open cast mines. Since the dawn of the power sector more than 100 years ago, this infrastructure has served as a corner stone of the German power supply. A technical distinction is also made between hard coal and lignite power plants; hard coal plants cannot simply switch to lignite and vice versa.

Formerly known as “alternative energy,” non-hydro renewables have collectively become the biggest pillar of German power supply.