From KlimaNachrichten

By KlimaNachrichten Editor

Monthly newsletter from Fritz Vahrenholt

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

as the chart shows, global mean temperatures continued to fall in December. The average warming over the last 40 years has been 0.15 degrees Celsius per decade, which would correspond to 1.5 degrees in 100 years.

After the dark doldrums comes the more dangerous light breeze

In November and December, Germany experienced what happens to a power supply system when it relies on solar power and wind energy and shuts down controllable coal and nuclear power plants. When the sun is not shining and the wind fails to materialize, causing electricity to become scarce, prices rise exorbitantly. Such a dark doldrums can catch us again or several times in January or February.

But worse than the dark doldrums is the light breeze: blue sky, midday summer sun and a light wind over Germany. Due to the addition of photovoltaics by 30,000 MW in the last 2 years, the capacity of solar power has risen to 96,000 MW, a large part of which cannot be stopped. What happens if the electricity demand in Germany is significantly lower – for example on a public holiday – say 40,000 MW? There is a threat of a collapse of the supply because the excessively high feed-ins cause the frequency in the power grid to shoot beyond 50.2 Hz, which is harmful to the grid. But Robert Habeck wanted this insane increase. His unreflected credo: “We need more speed in the expansion of solar energy” brings us into the blackout zone as early as this summer.

Amani Jonas, Managing Director of the electricity trader CFP Flexpower, describes this danger in a sensational article in the photovoltaic magazine “pv magazine”: “On Easter Sunday 2025, electricity demand drops to about 40 gigawatts during the midday hours, while solar systems on roofs alone produce up to 34.2 gigawatts. Together with 8 gigawatts of conventional must-run capacity and another 11.7 gigawatts of grid-connected renewables that are not curtailed, this brings the total supply to 53.9 gigawatts. There is far too much electricity in the grid. Even with an optimistic export of 8 gigawatts, an oversupply of 5.9 gigawatts remains, which corresponds to the capacity of five nuclear power plants… This could lead to serious grid problems, including an increase in grid frequency, shutdowns of photovoltaic inverters, damage to machinery and potential brownouts, especially in solar-rich regions such as southern Bavaria.”

A brownout is a regional blackout that is intended to avoid a nationwide blackout by disconnecting the affected region from the rest of the grid. The article in the photovoltaic magazine (!) calls for quick emergency solutions, such as the immediate abolition of the special benefits for rooftop systems such as exemption from grid fees, VAT and electricity tax, so that the expansion of non-controllable rooftop systems comes to a standstill. “Politics is called upon” is the slogan in the article in the photovoltaic magazine. Have you, dear reader, read anything about the errors of the photovoltaic energy transition in the election programs of the SPD, CDU or Greens, which will decide the formation of a government among themselves?

The SPD program says on page 30: “We are clearly committed to the climate goals for Germany and the EU. We must limit the increase in the global average temperature to well below two degrees Celsius and, if possible, lead it to the 1.5 degree path. We support the European Green Deal so that Europe becomes the first climate-neutral continent. A weakening of the achievements achieved cannot be done with us. Our economy needs planning security. We will implement laws that have been passed. We are aware of our pioneering role and will turn this into an advantage for our country, our people and Germany as a business location.” (Emphasis added)

In other words, the current course will be continued undeterred. One would like to know how Germany, with a share of 1.5% of the world’s CO2 emissions (the annual increase in China is greater than Germany’s total emissions of 583 million tonnes of CO2), can limit the average temperature to 1.5 or 2 degrees Celsius. As long as the dystopian over- and underproduction of solar and wind energy is celebrated as an achievement, this means that we will hold on to our pioneering role, even if we sacrifice our prosperity because it is about saving the world. We had already heard something similar from Greta Thunberg. Easter is after the election. And then comes Pentecost with even higher solar power production and also low electricity demand. Germany will have to tremble all summer if a federal government does not finally drive a chainsaw through the thicket of the wrong energy policy, which costs us prosperity and jobs and exposes us to ridicule worldwide in the event of a bright breeze. Die Welt will ask: How could this country be so destroyed under a CDU chancellor and an SPD chancellor?

Only a few electricity suppliers publish data on the extent of the impending shutdown drama like the Avacon grid traffic light or Bayernwerk here. The picture shows the shutdown of green electricity plants in April 2024. This year it will be even more violent. The darker red the color, the more often solar and wind power plants had to be shut down. Mind you, this only applies to the solar fields and wind farms that can be switched off. The rooftop systems continue to feed into the grid uncontrollably, regardless of whether the electricity is needed or not.

How could it come to this?

Through an unprecedented over-subsidy of rooftop systems, Robert Habeck has succeeded in increasing the annual expansion of solar systems from 5260 MW in 2020 to 7480 MW in 2021, 14630 MW in 2023 to 15900 MW in 2024, so that we now have a total of 96,000 MW of solar capacity in Germany. Two-thirds of these are rooftop systems, which usually cannot be controlled or switched off. With a maximum electricity consumption in Germany of about 85,000 MW, you can see that something has gone off the rails here. 4 million households benefit from the feed-in tariff, which is fixed for 20 years. Those who only feed into the grid receive 12.09 €ct/kWh fixed remuneration.

If you consume the electricity you generate yourself, you only get €8.11/kWh for the electricity fed into the grid. This would make the plant unprofitable. However, owner-occupiers not only save on electricity tax and VAT, but also on the grid fee. That is a total of 17 €ct/kWh, according to Amani Jonas’ estimate about 5 billion € per year. The grid costs are borne by households without solar roofs. Of course, owner-occupiers also use the networks. However, there is no alleged grid relief by the owner-occupiers, because the grids must also be designed for peak times when the solar roof owner wants to draw electricity like anyone else, e.g. at night or in winter.

Newer systems with storage systems also increase these unpaid costs even further, as self-consumption continues to rise. Home storage systems also hardly contribute to smoothing out solar power generation, as Prof. Hirth from the Hertie School in Berlin has demonstrated: At the time of the highest solar radiation at noon, the batteries are already fully charged – and fail as an instrument of grid stabilization.

Rooftop photovoltaics (PV) is still the most expensive form of electricity generation. A rooftop PV system is more than twice as expensive as a ground-mounted system of the same size. This is also shown by the comparison of the feed-in tariffs: ground-mounted 5.5-5.9 €ct/kWh, rooftop system 12.09 €ct/kWh. Nevertheless, the framework conditions were set by the federal government in such a way that there was an uncontrolled solar boom on roofs, the consequences of which will affect the security of the electricity grid and thus all of us in the coming years.

The fact that ground-mounted photovoltaics is not problem-free is shown by the high lease prices that the gold diggers of the solar projects are willing to pay to farmers. With 5000 € per hectare of land, solar projects are pushing farmers who cannot earn these high rents out of agricultural production. The average lease price for agricultural uses is €274 per hectare. This shortage of land (up to 4%) affects agricultural production, which is already burdened by the shortage of land due to biogas (9% of the area) and nature conservation set-aside (10%).

How are natural gas prices developing?

Natural gas prices have reached their highest level of the year in recent weeks. The cutting of Russian pipelines through Ukraine has led to bottlenecks in Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, which are now dependent on supplies from neighboring countries. The price increased by 35% year-on-year. As a result, storage facilities in Germany and Europe are currently emptying at a faster pace than in recent years. Across Europe, storage facilities are only 69.7% full, compared to 84.5% at the same time a year ago. The filling level of Ukrainian gas storage facilities is only 15%. In case of doubt, Ukraine will have to be supplied from Europe if there is no short-term pacification of the Ukraine war, as Ukraine was highly dependent on Russian natural gas imports.

However, the further development of gas prices anticipated by the gas markets is remarkable. According to this, they are not expected to rise further this year and even decline next year. In my view, the markets assume that there will be an end to the war in Ukraine. Donald Trump’s announcement that he will end the war has already affected the markets. They probably assume that peace talks on the Ukraine war will take into account Russian, but also Eastern European interests after a resumption of gas trade. It can even be assumed that Putin will also introduce the resupply of the still intact Nord Stream pipeline into the talks.

Incidentally, Europe’s long-term gas supply has been enriched by an option due to the fall of the Assad regime. Under pressure from Russia, Assad had refused for years to agree to a pipeline from Qatar, from the world’s largest natural gas field, South Pars, to Turkey through Syria. Now these plans will be put on the agenda by Turkey and Qatar, which will allow Qatar, the world’s largest gas producer, to transport its natural gas to Europe in the future at more favorable conditions than by LNG. However, the 1500 km long pipeline through Syria must first be built. It will be interesting to see how the interests of the US, Russia, Turkey and Qatar in the Middle East and Ukraine will balance each other in the near future.

Against the backdrop of the global upswing in the gas markets, the intention of the current federal government to shut down the gas pipelines by 2045 (see my newsletter from September) and to shorten the depreciation periods of gas pipelines to 20 years can be considered rather foolish. The bad thing is that the CDU, which will provide the chancellor, has not yet intended to change anything. Friedrich Merz is sticking to the goal of the current federal government to make Germany CO2-neutral by 2045. The energy supplier of the CDU-governed city of Mannheim, MVV, is already cutting off gas to citizens in 2035.

I wish you a happy new year 2025
Your
Fritz Vahrenholt