The German report, unfortunately, relies on a methodologically questionable analysis to bolster its claim that the country’s renewables industry was responsible for “substantially” reducing the nation’s CO2 production. It relied on weekly averages of wind production, rather than reality-based hourly chronological load dispatch data, which would have shown wind’s relentless skitter. As I looked at the percentage of fuel use from 2000-2008, I noted that combined coal use declined over this time by 7% (from 51-44%), while gas increased 4% (from 9-13%) and biomass increased from zero to 4%. As the authors noted, nuclear use also declined by 7%. However, the latter power source is the principle means of keeping CO2 emissions at bay in the system.

The fact that wind increased from 1 to 6% of the mix during this time does not show that it was responsible for any CO2 reductions, giving the requirement to tame its volatility. What is a bit curious about these overall statistics is the lack of explanation about “others” in the mix, which increased from 7-10%. I’m assuming this may be hydro in some combination, which, if this is the case, would easily, in tandem with natural gas, explain how wind volatility might be contained with minimum consequence for CO2 emissions, although there still would be consequence.

Despite all the installed wind and solar, the country has only reduced is fossil fired production by 3%, while also reducing its nuclear generation by 7%. By increasing its biomass fourfold over the last ten years (biomass emits CO2), and introducing all that wind skitter to a system that only has thermal generators to keep it in balance, inefficiently intensifying the thermal behavior on its grids, a proper accounting of all variables would likely demonstrate that Germany has actually increased its internal CO2 emissions in the production of electricity.