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Germany faces big challenges in shift toward green energy

It is a grand project that Environment Minister Peter Altmaier once labeled “open-heart surgery on the national economy” of Europe’s export-driven industrial powerhouse.

The goal is to be nuclear-free by 2022 and to combat pollution and climate change by boosting the share of clean and safe renewables to 80 percent by 2050.

 

Germany’s solar power capacity has risen exponentially to about 30 gigawatts now. Another 25 to 30 gigawatts come from wind farms across vast stretches of Germany’s flat, coastal north and offshore parks in the North and Baltic seas.

By Mathilde Richter, AFP
May 20, 2013, 11:33 am TWN

http://www.chinapost.com.tw/commentary/afp/2013/05/20/379055/Germany-faces.htm

PULHEIM, Germany — Tense engineers have their eyes peeled on complex color-coded diagrams on a wall-sized screen that makes their control room look like the inside of a spaceship.

They work with a power system that would have seemed equally futuristic not so long ago. It is also prone to solar turbulence and other unexpected flare-ups.

The technicians work at a monitoring center of the electricity company Amprion — one of the many nerve centers of Germany’s ambitious transition from nuclear to renewable energies.

Their job is to watch screens that update every three seconds to monitor about 11,000 kilometers (7,000 miles) of high-voltage power lines that criss-cross much of western Germany and extend into other European countries.

They are watching for sudden peaks and troughs, to avert dangerous power overloads or shortages, from their high-tech safety center at Pulheim near Cologne.

“The situation changes fast, it’s very volatile,” says Christoph Schneiders, the center’s head of planning, pointing to the fickle nature of natural energy.

When clouds cover the sun over the solar plants that have mushroomed across Germany in recent years, he explains, the engineers see an instant drop in output. The sharp falls reverse just as quickly when the sky clears again.

“It goes up, it goes down, it is very difficult to predict,” said Schneiders. And unlike a gas plant, he said, solar power can’t just be switched off when there is an overload.

The hard-to-predict flow of renewable energies compared to fossil or nuclear power is one of the many challenges of the energy transition which Chancellor Angela Merkel rang in in the days after Japan’s 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster.

It is a grand project that Environment Minister Peter Altmaier once labeled “open-heart surgery on the national economy” of Europe’s export-driven industrial powerhouse.

The goal is to be nuclear-free by 2022 and to combat pollution and climate change by boosting the share of clean and safe renewables to 80 percent by 2050.

Across Germany, solar panels, made popular by state subsidies and falling unit prices, now cover many home roofs and stretches of farmland.

New laws have allowed home owners to sell excess power back into the grid, while other incentives promote home insulation and other efficiency gains.

Germany’s solar power capacity has risen exponentially to about 30 gigawatts now. Another 25 to 30 gigawatts come from wind farms across vast stretches of Germany’s flat, coastal north and offshore parks in the North and Baltic seas.

May 20, 2013 - Posted by arclight2011 | Uncategorized