When it comes to transitioning to renewable energy sources, Germany are kicking ass. Sunday 8th of May, the country managed a massive 87% of their energy production from a combination of solar, wind, hydro and biomass plants.
That day, Germany created a total of 63GW of which 55GW came from renewable energy source. This was a special day in terms of the wind conditions were just right, so while they can’t expect this amount everyday, they are continuing to invest in and roll out renewable energy sources.
To dramatically demonstrate the trajectory the country is on, in 2015, only 33% of the power came from renewable power sources.
We are still a long way from the fluctuating nature of renewables reaching the point where they can realistically replace the base load of coal and nuclear power plants, but that timeline appears to be shortening. The max power generation of Germany’s renewable certainly is an impressive number, but when it comes to turning off the dirty power sources, it’ll be the minimum power per day that really counts.
The country currently has plans to transition to 100% renewable energy by 2050.
By comparison, Australia is a very different country with a land mass of 7,692,024 km2 while Germany is just 357,168 km2. This has a dramatic impact on the size of the challenge to transport power between the power generation location and the usage point.
Despite the geographical differences, the Australian Labor party have committed to 50% renewables by 2030, but also committed to reach net zero emissions by 2050. It is worth keeping in mind that zero emissions may not mean we create 100% of our energy from renewal sources.
ore information at Quartz.
