You gotta hand it to the Krauts. When they decide to do something, they go all in with ruthless efficiency. Whether it’s killing jews or destroying their own industrial base with moronic energy policies, they are second-to-none.
The solar industry in Germany now reports that a jaw-dropping 15% of German solar capacity is rapidly disintegrating.
On one hand, this represents the decay & destruction of many billions of euros of capital.
On the other hand it represents hardly any energy risk, because 10 gigwatts of solar capacity produces very little power, much less during peak demand period, in a dark cold country like Germany.
Fortunately for the grid, the power isn’t needed because Germany is just losing its industries instead of growing the clean energy supply. Further, this rotting solar, even when new, didn’t produce the sort of electricity supply that supports factories staying in the country.
Germany’s nuclear plants were getting more effective with age, with extraordinary uptime and reliability at low cost. Its solar equipment, on the other hand, gets worse with age. From here on, Germany is going to have to sprint just to keep its capacity numbers up, to say nothing of actual solar energy production.
Countries have demonstrably powered themselves at or above 50% nuclear in their power mix for decades [Texas is at a pathetic 10% or so], whereas solar and wind dependency is merely in the experimental stage and may actually not work. Only Denmark has broken 50% and its reward is excruciatingly high electricity prices and several times the carbon intensity of France.
We’ll see! The stakes are perilously high for countries attempting this grand experimental transition.