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Germany sets renewable energy record

09 January 2018

Germany set a milestone on January 1 by fulfilling all of its power needs that day with renewable energy, with 85 percent coming from wind energy.

On New Year’s Day, the country of 82 million needed 41 gigawatt, but all of it was produced by renewable energy sources, setting an unexpected record, said Rainer Baake, state secretary for energy at the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy.

The power which did not come from wind energy was produced by water and biomass, a report in the Liberty Times said.

However, that did not mean that other power stations could stop operations, but they looked at foreign markets to export their surplus energy. Baake remarked that the lack of flexibility of traditional power stations still posed problems for the transition to more renewables.

Germany usually buys nuclear power from its neighbors, with up to 78 percent coming from France, and some from Switzerland and the Czech Republic. The fourth-largest energy producer, LEAG, said that during the year-end holidays the production from its fire-powered stations had dropped to 25 percent, with wind energy making up for the fall, reports said.


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