Wind and Solar Renewables:- The German Experience

This is about a shocking German report from RWI Essen – the leading German economic research institution

The link to the report (in English) is  Here
The English version of the RWI-Essen website is Here
The wikipedia page on RWI Essen is Here

Why is this foreign report important to us?

In the UK we are at a point of crisis regarding future electrical energy generation. Decisions that should have been made 20 years ago have been avoided.  Arguably, whatever is now decided comes too late. Nothing short of a miracle will now prevent power cuts within the next 10 - 15 years. But unbelievably there are still people in government who, either for reasons of self interest or political advantage, still seek to pursue the current insane renewables agenda. If these people are allowed to prevail then the power cuts, economic dislocation and the consequential casualty list will be considerably worse.

Politicians, green zealots and other assorted wishful thinkers have there heads firmly buried in the sand. In Germany it has been even worse. That is why this German report is so important.

As part of the unending Green propaganda, we continually  bombarded with how Germany have embraced wind and solar. It is well worth cutting though the bullshit and picking up on exactly what the real experience is.

The above RWI-Essen document is a highly reputable study regarding renewables in Germany. This report is now three years old. Nothing has improved. It is (even for me) a shocking expose of the cost and waste of the German experience. I'll quote a few items from it below, but perhaps the concluding paragraph from the executive summary say it all.

[quote]
Although Germany’s promotion of renewable energies is commonly portrayed in
the media as setting a “shining example in providing a harvest for the world” (The
Guardian 2007), we would instead regard the country’s experience as a cautionary
tale of massively expensive environmental and energy policy that is devoid of economic
and environmental benefits.
[unquote]

From the Abstract:

[quote]
To the contrary, the government’s support mechanisms have in many respects subverted these incentives, resulting in massive expenditures that show little long-term promise for stimulating the economy, protecting the environment, or increasing energy security.
[unquote]

Some more quotes from the Executive Summary

[quote]
Currently, the feed-in tariff for PV is more than eight times higher than the wholesale
electricity price at the power exchange and more than four times the feed-in
tariff paid for electricity produced by on-shore wind turbines.
Even on-shore wind, widely regarded as a mature technology, requires feed-in
tariffs that exceed the per-kWh cost of conventional electricity by up to 300% to
remain competitive.
[unquote]

[quote]
In the end, Germany’s PV promotion has become a subsidization regime that, on a
per-worker basis, has reached a level that far exceeds average wages, with per worker
subsidies as high as 175,000 € (US $ 240,000).
It is most likely that whatever jobs are created by renewable energy promotion
would vanish as soon as government support is terminated, leaving only Germany’s
export sector to benefit from the possible continuation of renewables support in
other countries such as the US.
[unquote]

[quote]
Claims about technological innovation benefits of Germany’s first-actor status are
unsupportable. In fact, the regime appears to be counter productive in that respect,
stifling innovation by encouraging producers to lock into existing technologies.
[unquote]

Clearly, the German experience should serve us as a dire warning rather than an example. Already their energy prices are only second to Denmark. Luckily (so far) for Germany, their industrial base built up from the second world war has enabled them to indulge in this fiasco.  Only a fool would take us down the same debilitating path.

Unfortunately we have no shortage of fools in Westminster.