[More] Germany Reality

German Energiewende (Energy Transition) - Progress Report

In June 2024 I wrote Germany Reality, which was based on 3½ years of hourly data detailing Demand, Generation, and Import/Export power flows in Germany. We are now passing through some of the darkest times of the winter, when often Wind refuses to cooperate across Northern Europe. These are challenging times for proponents of an all-’renewable’ Northern Hemisphere.

But, batteries! they cry. Batteries are getting cheaper all the time! Batteries will solve all our intermittency problems!

They seem to be confusing Moore’s Law (the number of transistors on silicon chips approximately doubling every two years) with a ‘learning curve’ for manufacture of new physical objects. Physical battery energy storage system assemblies, for example. Batteries can certainly be improved over time, but absolutely cannot be miniaturised to fit anything like Moore’s Law.

Tethering ourselves back to reality, therefore, where does this leave Germany?

I downloaded the last 31 days of data (on hourly intervals) from Agora Energiewende: first for sources of Germany’s generation (see Figure 1), then for Germany’s power imports / exports (see Figure 2).

Figure 1: Germany Power Generation, 1 Month to 25 Jan 2025:

Minor amusement derived from fact that pumped storage generation is shown always providing positive power. In other words, this data shows Germany has invented perpetual motion machines.

Noting that Germany has a quite constant 4.7 GW Biomass baseload plus another quite constant 2.4 GW Hydro baseload (so what’s the objection to Nuclear baseload?)

I’ll focus on the period of low Wind towards the right hand end of the chart (marked with solid red lines) beginning 15/01 and continuing until 23/01.¹

Figure 2: Germany Power Import/Export, 1 Month to 25 Jan 2025:

You can see in Figure 2 that 15/01 thru 23/01 also corresponds to sustained high levels of power imports. Whether Germany’s neighbours will forever continue selling it power is more of a question for some countries than others, but for the moment we’ll assume those imports remain as-is.

Table 1: Germany Power Flows 15Jan - 23Jan 2025

Averaging the power flow numbers across this interval of 191 hours:

Let us assume that batteries are to fill this gap instead of all the fossil fuels Germany burnt to keep its lights on. That way we can calculate how much electricity storage would be needed. Simply multiply the net Demand 41.6 GW by the time 191 h =
7,950 GWh = 7,950,000 MWh.

The Vistra Moss Landing facility (that coincidentally burned down 16 Jan 2025) was a 400 MW / 1,600 MWh battery energy storage system (BESS). Figure 3 has a couple of pictures, before and after the fire. I think that phase of the Moss Landing BESSs cost around USD 1 billion, but please comment (with link to source) if you have a more accurate figure.

Figure 3: Vistra Moss Landing BESS:

Inside the Vistra Moss Landing turbine hall before the fire; overhead view of the turbine hall after the fire. A graphic illustration of the principle that you should *never* rely on the vendor's promises (e.g. regarding fire protection / certification).

So, Germany would currently need ~5,000 of these

Obviously that’s not going to happen.

Probably Germany will continue to install more and more Solar *capacity* (despite it providing the least benefit in winter when it’s most needed). And probably Germany will install more on-shore Wind and more off-shore Wind *capacities*. Off-shoring its carbon emissions and its industry to China as it does so.

Running the numbers with
two (2) times current Solar *capacity* and
three (3) times current Wind *capacity*²;
we can postulate Table 2.

Table 2: Future Germany Power Flows based on 15Jan - 23Jan 2025

Oh dear! That doesn’t help much. It’s reduced net Demand to 25.5 GW… but still multiplied by the same 191 h = 4,868 GWh = 4,868,500 MWh =

over 3,000 times the Vistra Moss Landing BESS.

Now if only there was a way to shift all the plentiful summer sun’s energy into the winter season…

But that road leads back to Hydrogen, which is also a very complex and expensive story.

I know!
Follow the UK’s lead, because we’re leading the World into Net Zero, don’t y’know.

Germany: as well as buying your shiny new electric car (i.e. ‘renewable’ *capacity*) from the Chinese, you’ll also need to keep your old internal combustion engine cars (i.e. lignite and coal and gas-fired power stations) manned, maintained and fuelled for all those times at night when the wind doesn’t blow.

And keep smiling as you de-industrialise: you’re saving the planet™.

---

Copyright © 2025 Chris S Bond

Disclaimer: Opinions expressed are solely my own.

This material is not peer-reviewed.

I am against #GroupThink.

Your feedback via polite factual comments / reasoned arguments welcome.

---

1. Coincidentally (actually not at all) this same low-to-no-Wind interlude affected the UK at roughly the same time:

GB week beginning Thurs 16Jan ending Thurs 23 Jan 2025

2. I’ve seen it suggested that Germany has already spent EUR 600 Billion or more on the ‘Energewende’. So if Germany spends around two times more it will still NOT achieve anything like energy sufficiency when the Wind drops at night in Winter.