In 2014, renewable electricity generation increased only slightly. Meanwhile, electricity generation from fossil fuels declined to the lowest value in at least 35 years. However, the change in domestic electricity demand is properly the biggest news.
Power plants located in Germany generate electricity to meet demand from domestic and foreign customers. As you can see in the chart above, German electricity demand peaked in 2007 and has declined ever since demand bounced back after the 2009 recession. Foreign demand (or net electricity exports) on the other hand, has been rising. In recent years so much so, increasing exports have overcompensated the decline in domestic consumption, requiring more electricity to be generated by German power plants.
According to preliminary data released by AG Energiebilanzen (AGEB), domestic electricity demand in 2014 dropped to 576 TWh. This is not only a 23 TWh (or 3.9%) decline compared to the 599 TWh consumed in 2013, but also the lowest consumption since 2000. At the same time, net exports have stagnated, leading to the lowest demand for German power in over a decade. In other words, the market volume for electricity produced in Germany contracted, so somebody had to reduce their output.
Since renewable power has priority on the grid and in most cases very low marginal costs, its production was not curtailed by the shrinking market. In fact renewables even increased their output by 5 TWh, putting even more pressure on other power sources. With no nuclear power plant going offline in 2014, nuclear power also remained almost stable. (See chart above)
As a consequence fossil power generators had to reduce their electricity production by almost 28 TWh, with hard coal and natural gas getting squeezed out the most. According to the AGEB, lignite power generation declined by 4.9 TWh, mainly driven by down time due to maintenance work, which means that it could come back in 2015.
All these developments have resulted in Germany generating less electricity from fossil fuels in 2014 than in the last 35 years (See chart below).
And in the US:
The electric power generation sector lost more than 5,800 jobs from January 2011 through June 2014 despite a gain of nearly 1,800 non-hydro renewable electricity generation jobs, according to the latest data available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
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The overall decline in electric power generation jobs coincides with a period in which the United States has seen declining year-over-year electricity sales, driven by energy efficiency improvements, and growth in distributed generation, such as behind-the-meter rooftop solar, among other factors. Additionally, the growth in some types of non-hydro renewable generation, particularly wind and solar, brings relatively few ongoing operations and maintenance jobs.
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Renewables. BLS first provided separate data series for renewable generation job categories in 2011. All four categories of non-hydro renewables have seen gains in power generation jobs since 2011. Solar has led the way, with the number of jobs related to the operation of solar generation installations in the electric power sector more than tripling in that timeframe. Although wind jobs have grown at a slower rate than solar since 2011, increasing 16%, there are still more than twice as many wind jobs as solar jobs in the electric power sector.
It would be interesting to see the total fuels usage for different countries, not merely the electricity production, in graph form.
By that, I mean, to also include all the gasoline, diesel, oil, coal, and natural gas burned in a country to heat homes, power transportation and make heat for industrial processes, etc to put all this into better perspective.
Perhaps an easier way to think of it is: What percentage of total energy calories are being contributed by all sources.
Germany has one of the best renewable energy contributions in the world, but if were able to see the whole energy picture, not just electricity generation, we would see just how much far it has to go to replace total fossil fuel calories.
One of the neat things about electric motors is that they are a lot more efficient than internal combustion engines, so in an all electric, all renewable energy world, we will actually need about 20% less energy than we would with a fossil fuel-burning world.
Can anyone here speak to how efficient is home heating with electric heat? I mean, we know that nobody wants to use it because it is frightfully expensive, but is it actually less efficient than fossil fuels? I would think that the total number of calories to heat a home might actually favor electricity? Heat is heat, and there is no chimney to release hot gases (and suck in cold air to the home) with baseboard heaters.
electrical resistance heating is very inefficient and expensive.
The more realistic choice will likely be heat pumps, which are quite efficient.
A home heated/cooled with heat pumps will generally be quite a bit more efficient than a typical oil or gas fired house.
http://energy.gov/energysaver/articles/geothermal-heat-pumps
Is it inefficient? Because I read someplace yesterday that electrical resistance heating was 100% efficient – all the electricity used was converted to heat.
Then, add in that you need an air source when you burn a fossil fuel. Which means that, unless your furnace or boiler has a dedicated outside air intake, the combusted air goes up the chimney, and then cold outside air leaks into your house to replace it. Which reduces the efficiency of the fossil fuel. And that air going up the chimney is hot, which means calories are wasted.
Electric heat IS expensive, yes…. NOW. But that is because it has to be generated by burning fossil fuels. Under my super-duper national utility system, we are going to make green electricity and sell it for next to nothing. So, electric heat could be cheap. (Renewable energy needs to be cheap so people will use it instead of fossil fuel energy).
Electricity consumption is falling all round the world and their business models can not cope with it. They should be attacking the transport industry whose main source of fuel is oil which is a diminishing resource with a volatile price. Railways and urban transport are obvious targets and cars also possible. http://www.climateoutcome.kiwi.nz/clean-energy-alternatives.html
I spend more money on heating my home with natural gas than any other fossil fuel use, including transportation. How I am going to heat my home without fossil fuels is a HUGE question for everyone in a northern latitude who lives in a non modern non super-insulated house.
Renewable energy tech makes electricity. Hundreds of millions of homes across the globe will need to be converted to be heated with electricity. So, electricity consumption is NOT going to be going down forever. It is going to go way way way up eventually.
In Sweden we use a lot of electricity for heating but normally in combination with heat pumps. We used to use oil to heat homes but then we decided on a big tax increase on that kind of oil and the switch was rapid.
My own feeling is that there are a huge number of jobs along with massive boosts to local economies available for communities and governments that choose to invest in “negawatts”. That is, in fact, one of the few items that fit more or less legitimately into the denier mantra that there are large outlays involved in dealing with warming.
Unfortunately for them, they’re wrong that the costs are unbearably unaffordable. It’s an exact parallel to retrofitting existing cities and towns a century or more ago to have proper, hygienic sewage collection and processing. Or electrification of existing towns and cities. Initial cost fairly high, ongoing costs built in as normal costs of larger developments as well as construction of individual premises.
The benefits of investment result in lower costs – in the case of sewage, in a lower burden of ill health as well as general amenity. In the case of electrification or insulation/other building improvements, better health from avoidance of hyper- or hypo-thermia and better living arrangements. I’m not sure that improved building standards could have saved all of those 20000+ people killed in the European or Russian heatwaves of the last decade, but surely fewer people would have died if they’d been able to cool down a bit.
Maybe you should do something about electicity generatsion in Scandinavia. It can be shown in real time on http://www.svk.se/Drift-och-marknad/Kraftsystemet/Aktuell-driftsituation/. Some remarks:
1. Norway has more hydro power than the countries demand, is almost always exporting. Norway is also using a lot of electricity per capita, heavy industry has located to Norway, for example aluminium industry.
2. Denmark is not using that much electricity and a lot of it comes from wind power.
The site in english is on http://www.svk.se/Start/English/Operations-and-market/Nordic-System-Map/