Germany: Recordable electricity production down in 2021

For the first time in 24 years, according to the UBA (Umweltbandesamt), the German Federal Office of the Environment, the production of renewable electricity displayed a drop.Should we worry about it?

Since 1997, the quantity of renewable electricity produced in Germany had not ceased to increase.While she was just over 40 TWh in 2000, she culminated at 250 TWh in 2020, which represents an average annual increase in 9.6%.In 2021, the renewable sectors, all technologies combined, produced 237 TWh, almost 5% less than the previous year.What didn't work?

The vagaries of the weather

The year 2021 simply combined bad weather conditions: less wind, a lot of rain and too little sun at the same time.We know that the production of wind energy can vary from 25% from one year to the next.

This year, the German wind farm provided 11% less electricity compared to 2020 (118 TWh), but this drop was accompanied by a very timid increase in solar energy production (0.8% in2021, while 5 GW new photovoltaic installations have been connected to the network this year).

But something bad is good, it is said.The abundant rainfall last summer had the positive effect of inflating hydroelectric electricity production.This generated 19 TWh, an increase of 5% compared to 2020.But the hydroelectric sector does not have the same weight as in France since it represents 7.6% of the electric mix, against 13% in France [1].

This increase was therefore insufficient to compensate for the fall in wind and solar energy production in Germany.

Upward consumption

The impact of the decrease in wind and solar productions is even more visible at the level of the energy mix, because it coincides with an increase in consumption.Renewables thus provided 42% of the total electricity consumed by the Germans in 2021, against 45.3% in 2020.The new government of Olaf Scholz, made up of social democrats, liberals and Greens, has set itself an 80% objective of renewable energies in the mix by 2030.

However, it was in 2030 that Germany planned to leave the coal definitively, after being completely out of nuclear in 2022.According to Dirk Messner, president of the UBA, more wind and photovoltaic installations will have to be built in the coming years.

________________________________________________

[1] Source: www.Knowledge of.org