Getting Paid for Energy Consumption is the New Incentive in Germany
At a time when countries have been worrying about clean energy and encourage the use of renewable energy sources, Germany has been basking in the light of excessive renewable energy. The keyword here is ‘excessive’ because on Sunday, May 8, the country reached a point where the powerful sources of sun and wind created so much energy that power prices plummeted into the negative for a substantial number of hours.
At approximately 1 pm, Germany’s solar, wind, hydro and biomass plants were collectively supplying almost 55GW of the 63GW that was being consumed. That makes it almost 87 percent of the energy required by the country. So to say, Germany’s commercial customers were being paid for the consumption of electricity.
This awe-inspiring feat has left every country around the world impressed. After all, the entire world has been looking for ways to reduce its carbon footprint and move towards the consumption of renewable energy.
This also proves how successful a system of large amounts of renewable energy can be. Renewable energy is often seen as an unreliable source of energy by critics because of the dependence on sun and wind, which are unpredictable. Germany’s recent accomplishment proves how wrong we can be about renewable energy. By the year 2050, Germany plans to move to renewable energy for 100 percent of its energy consumption.
While the future looks bright for renewable energy, the change may spell doom for power plants that provide energy through renewable sources. Sunday gave the power suppliers a glimpse of what the future holds for them. With renewable energy handling most of the power consumption, gas plants were taken offline. But coal and nuclear plants couldn’t be shut down as quickly, so they continued generating unsaleable energy, which they had to pay for.
