German coal power for export
Coal power continues to make up a large share of Germany's power generation, but the main culprit is often overlooked: power exports. Today, we take a look at German utility organization BDEW's comments on the issue, which confirm ours.
The charge that Germany is switching to coal power to replace nuclear is widespread not only in the Anglo world, but even in German. Recently, German weekly Die Zeit had this to say: "Despite gigantic investments in wind and solar energy, Germany is generating more and more coal power – and more and more greenhouse gases."
We have already talked about how carbon emissions are probably not up in the power sector for 2013, and over at EnergyTransition.de I recently talked about how power exports are the main reason behind the sustained high level of coal power generation in Germany – meaning that the Netherlands and France, in particular, are the main culprits. Obviously, such statements quickly get you labeled as a spin doctor, so I wanted to share with you the findings of German utility organization BDEW (see this PDF in German from January).
First, there is this chart showing that the share of renewables in "gross power generation" was 23.4 percent in 2013.
Next, we have a chart showing that renewables made up around 25 percent of "gross domestic power consumption."
Notice also the difference in terawatt-hours in the two charts: 629 TWh in the top chart for gross power generation, compared to 596 TWh for power consumption. The difference is 33 TWh, the amount that Germany exported (net) in 2013.
In other words, the BDEW subtracts power exports from "conventional and nuclear energy" (the big red piece of the second pie). The result is a noticeably larger share of renewables in terms of domestic power consumption.
The organization has no choice in displaying the figures this way, nor did I in my recent article. The BDEW and I are both just reporting the facts: renewable electricity has a priority on the German grid and offsets conventional power generation. Net power exports directly increase power generation from conventional plants.
That's not to say, however, that France and the Netherlands are ordering power directly from German coal plants. Rather, they simply export electricity from Germany, and what they get is the German power mix at that given minute – or, as the BDEW put it in a background paper published on January 14 entitled (in German) "Power trading between Germany and neighboring countries" (PDF):
"In the context of European power flows, it would be counterfactual and methodologically impossible to say that the increase in power flows to foreign countries in 2013 mainly came from hard coal power plants and renewables. In specific cases, the power mix largely depends on the specific load and generation situation. Such claims are methodologically unfounded because no specific source of electricity / no specific power mix is exported."
In other words, Germany's neighbors that are net importers from Germany (not all of them are; Poland and the Czech Republic generally are not, for instance) do not directly order electricity from German coal plants or wind farms, and roughly a quarter of the electrons they get are from renewables – because that is the average power mix in Germany. But at any given moment, that mix can look quite different.
Nonetheless, the effect of net exports on German power production is to raise the share of conventional electricity, which would otherwise be offset by renewables. Otherwise, the BDEW would not increase the share of renewables when factoring out exports.
Before we close, it is worth noting one major difference in the motivation behind foreign and German reports about the rise in coal power without a mention of exports as the main cause. Anglo proponents of nuclear wish to demonstrate that a switch to renewables means a switch to coal power, and reference to the role of exports undermines that argument. The Germans, in contrast, largely oppose coal power, and reference to the responsibility of Germany's neighbors also undermines their campaign for a coal phaseout. (Craig Morris)