Summary
In 2024, Germany increased its reliance on renewable energy, which accounted for 59% of electricity generation, up from 56% in 2023.
Wind energy led with 31.9%, followed by solar at 14.7%.
Despite a 0.9% rise in electricity consumption, total energy generation fell by 4.2% to 431.7 TWh, driven by declines in conventional sources.
Lignite (16.4%) and natural gas (13.2%) remained key fossil fuels.
This was Germany’s first full year without nuclear power after its 2023 phaseout, aligning with its 2045 climate-neutrality goal.
Why shut down nuke plants? They’re much much cleaner than fossil fuels and work well with renewables.
That were the main reasons around the 2000s when it was decided for the first time and that was generally consensus in the population.
And they don’t work well with renewables, where did you get that from? NPPs want to continually run, cause most of their cost is in construction, so you don’t want to shut them down. And they are limited in the flexibility of power ramping by thermal loads and stresses, which causes cracks in pipes if you power them up and down all the time.
They work great with renewables because they do what renewables can’t - provide consistent and reliable power output. They’re base load generators.
That works only for a small amount of renewables. Who gets to produce if there is more production than consumption?