So far, Germany is on a pace to reach the lowest coal usage since 2002.
In the first 8 months of this year they produced **75.2 TWh** of coal electricity, compared to **105.0 TWh** in the first 8 months of 2022.
Compared to the COVID-pandemic, this is also less than the **86.2 TWh** in 2021.
It’s just a bit higher than the **65.3 TWh** in 2020, but that year had several lockdowns due to the COVID-pandemic, especially in the first few months.
If the current pace holds, 2023 could undercut this record, as 2020 picked up steam in the last half of the year as lockdowns lifted.
Oh Dear, this is going to upset a lot of redditors 🙂
Lets wait for winter to come to judge the whole picture. Summer is obviously a period with lower electricity demand for heating so…
It was/is a good year for renewables and the new regulation laws are taking their effect. Many coal and gas plants are also producing heat and as a byproduct electricity, so the fossil usage will probably plateau in a couple of years. Also peaker power plants and reserve power plants will plateau the same way.
The next step is producing energy storage, but those pay the electricity distribution (Netzendgeld ) twice, which is just stupid. I would just reduce it to zero or at least half because that is just logical.
This is an unequivocal positive. A drop of almost 30% in a single year is insane.
Don’t worry, guys. They just closed a windpark to dig for more of it.
/s
Need to restart all the nuclear plants for sure.
Good to hear. We are already witnessing the effects of global warming across the world, sadly. Would be nice if we could prevent even more of it.
That’s one way to celebrate their industry decline, and even with that they’re probably exceed last years coal production this winter.
That’s good but unfortunately slowly it becomes less and less important how much Europe is emitting because of how much everybody else do. Majority of emissions experienced by China, along with their economic growth, are still ahead of India. And if the African nations finally get their shit together economically the CO2 emissions are going to shoot through the roof.
Edit: sorry, this comment got a lot more pessimistic than I intended. On the hand: if renewables and energy storage are going to get even cheaper, and hopefully fussion power becomes a reality, then it might not be economical to build expensive fossil fuels infrastructure in those developing regions and they will just use zero-emission technologies.
It is not really surprising. Even if it sounds counterintuitive at first sight, if you want to **reduce carbon emissions compared to the status quo** starting from a mixed power supply (as Europe has), then a nuclear exit and full focus on renewables is the best strategy. This will trigger investment in renewables and all stakeholders will do their best to fit renewables into the grid.
This is observed in many countries – see this Nature paper from 2020 where they found robust evidence for this: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00696-3](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00696-3)
Yet there is still some way to go. I celebrated the shutdown of the last nuclear plant in April 2023 and I have a good bottle of wine which I will ceremoniously open when the last Germany coal plant goes offline. I am cautiously optimistic that this will happen around 2028-2029 🙂
BREAKING NEWS! German coal imports grow by 28% compared to last year
Noooo my german energy policy hate circle jerk narrative 🙁
13 comments
So far, Germany is on a pace to reach the lowest coal usage since 2002.
In the first 8 months of this year they produced **75.2 TWh** of coal electricity, compared to **105.0 TWh** in the first 8 months of 2022.
Compared to the COVID-pandemic, this is also less than the **86.2 TWh** in 2021.
It’s just a bit higher than the **65.3 TWh** in 2020, but that year had several lockdowns due to the COVID-pandemic, especially in the first few months.
If the current pace holds, 2023 could undercut this record, as 2020 picked up steam in the last half of the year as lockdowns lifted.
**Source:** [https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&chartColumnSorting=default&month=-1&year=-1&stacking=stacked_absolute×lider=1](https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&chartColumnSorting=default&month=-1&year=-1&stacking=stacked_absolute×lider=1)
[https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&chartColumnSorting=default&year=-1&stacking=stacked_absolute×lider=1&interval=year](https://www.energy-charts.info/charts/energy/chart.htm?l=en&c=DE&chartColumnSorting=default&year=-1&stacking=stacked_absolute×lider=1&interval=year)
​
**Edit:** Before anyone asks, yes, imports went up since the Nuclear Phaseout, but it’s mostly renewables that get imported.
57% renewables
23% nuclear
20% fossil fuels
As can be seen in this chart: [https://abload.de/img/importv8c1n.png](https://abload.de/img/importv8c1n.png)
Oh Dear, this is going to upset a lot of redditors 🙂
Lets wait for winter to come to judge the whole picture. Summer is obviously a period with lower electricity demand for heating so…
It was/is a good year for renewables and the new regulation laws are taking their effect. Many coal and gas plants are also producing heat and as a byproduct electricity, so the fossil usage will probably plateau in a couple of years. Also peaker power plants and reserve power plants will plateau the same way.
The next step is producing energy storage, but those pay the electricity distribution (Netzendgeld ) twice, which is just stupid. I would just reduce it to zero or at least half because that is just logical.
This is an unequivocal positive. A drop of almost 30% in a single year is insane.
Don’t worry, guys. They just closed a windpark to dig for more of it.
/s
Need to restart all the nuclear plants for sure.
Good to hear. We are already witnessing the effects of global warming across the world, sadly. Would be nice if we could prevent even more of it.
That’s one way to celebrate their industry decline, and even with that they’re probably exceed last years coal production this winter.
That’s good but unfortunately slowly it becomes less and less important how much Europe is emitting because of how much everybody else do. Majority of emissions experienced by China, along with their economic growth, are still ahead of India. And if the African nations finally get their shit together economically the CO2 emissions are going to shoot through the roof.
Edit: sorry, this comment got a lot more pessimistic than I intended. On the hand: if renewables and energy storage are going to get even cheaper, and hopefully fussion power becomes a reality, then it might not be economical to build expensive fossil fuels infrastructure in those developing regions and they will just use zero-emission technologies.
It is not really surprising. Even if it sounds counterintuitive at first sight, if you want to **reduce carbon emissions compared to the status quo** starting from a mixed power supply (as Europe has), then a nuclear exit and full focus on renewables is the best strategy. This will trigger investment in renewables and all stakeholders will do their best to fit renewables into the grid.
This is observed in many countries – see this Nature paper from 2020 where they found robust evidence for this: [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00696-3](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-020-00696-3)
Yet there is still some way to go. I celebrated the shutdown of the last nuclear plant in April 2023 and I have a good bottle of wine which I will ceremoniously open when the last Germany coal plant goes offline. I am cautiously optimistic that this will happen around 2028-2029 🙂
BREAKING NEWS! German coal imports grow by 28% compared to last year
Noooo my german energy policy hate circle jerk narrative 🙁