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>Cheap solar, yes you can now buy PV quite cheap. This is what matters. >How much of this costs (research, developmemt, building large factories in China) was

>Cheap solar, yes you can now buy PV quite cheap. This is what matters. >How much of this costs (research, developmemt, building large factories in China) was payed by German EEG money and different subsidies? This doesn't matter whatever the answer is. Cheap solar is what matters, not how humanity made the breakthrough or who paid for the research or build-out. Personally, I think China deserves credit here. They made a political decision to develop batteries, solar and EV's as part of their long-term planning several years ago and have been wildly successful with all 3. That Germany (and most other western nations) failed to do this themselves is unfortunate, but having a sour grapes attitude about it is not constructive. Cheap solar and cheap batteries are here now. All countries should make the most of it as quickly as possible. Particularly Germany, and I'm happy to see Munich getting one of the first Sodium BESS storage facilities from CATL.

leonidasrup 3d ago
China still produced only 11% of electricity from solar, Germany 18%, so in this metric Germany is better, but import all of it PV panels. And electricity only a part of primary energy consumption in both in China and Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/china https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/china https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/germany https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/germany I'm interested how China could decarbonize, as they still building a lot of coal power plants. They are slowly decreasing coal electricity production, but ramping up syntetic fuel from coal production. So if Germany wants to follow Chinas path, they should build a lot of solar, wind, coal, some nuclear and hydro power plants, stop building gas power plants. You don't want it, as coal burning still has significant health impacts in Germany. https://caneurope.org/publications/coal-burning-eu-countries-make-their-neighbours-sick/ https://caneurope.org/publications/coal-burning-eu-countries... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373512769_Environmental_Burden_of_Disease_due_to_Emissions_of_Hard_Coal-_and_Lignite-Fired_Power_Plants_in_Germany https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373512769_Environme... The long-term political decission of China is to become independent of energy imports, they are well aware of their energy import vunerability. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malacca_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malacca_dilemma Medium-term thinking in Germany is to import a lot oil, natural gas, PV. Long-term thinking in Germany to import a lot of hydrogen, PV. Nobody talks about Germany becomming energy independent. Best place for batteries for decarbonization is in EVs, not grid stabilization. Even better for decarbonization are electric trains, electric trams, trolleybus, they run directly from electric grid.
- Kon5ole 3d ago
  >China still produced only 11% of electricity from solar, Germany 18%, so in this metric Germany is better I think it's more interesting to compare actual production in this case. Here is a truly mindblowing statistic: China's solar panels already produce more than twice the total amount of electricity consumed by Germany per year. China's solar growth is equivalent to "one Germany" every 2 years. Batteries follow a similar curve to solar panels, and I disagree strongly that they should not be used for grid stabilization. In fact, nothing stabilizes the grid better than batteries. They should of course also replace fossil fuels in transportation as well, and that's been happening for years now. I recall many similar arguments for EV's as we now see for grid storage. "It's too expensive", "We can't make enough batteries". Turns out it wasn't, and we could. I'm sure we can again, and China is basically proving it repeatedly. All that our politicians in the west need to do is get out of the way, and I'm sure it will solve itself without any further involvement from them.

leonidasrup 3d ago

China still produced only 11% of electricity from solar, Germany 18%, so in this metric Germany is better, but import all of it PV panels. And electricity only a part of primary energy consumption in both in China and Germany. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_by_country https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/china https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/china https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/germany https://ourworldindata.org/profile/energy/germany I'm interested how China could decarbonize, as they still building a lot of coal power plants. They are slowly decreasing coal electricity production, but ramping up syntetic fuel from coal production. So if Germany wants to follow Chinas path, they should build a lot of solar, wind, coal, some nuclear and hydro power plants, stop building gas power plants. You don't want it, as coal burning still has significant health impacts in Germany. https://caneurope.org/publications/coal-burning-eu-countries-make-their-neighbours-sick/ https://caneurope.org/publications/coal-burning-eu-countries... https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373512769_Environmental_Burden_of_Disease_due_to_Emissions_of_Hard_Coal-_and_Lignite-Fired_Power_Plants_in_Germany https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373512769_Environme... The long-term political decission of China is to become independent of energy imports, they are well aware of their energy import vunerability. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malacca_dilemma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malacca_dilemma Medium-term thinking in Germany is to import a lot oil, natural gas, PV. Long-term thinking in Germany to import a lot of hydrogen, PV. Nobody talks about Germany becomming energy independent. Best place for batteries for decarbonization is in EVs, not grid stabilization. Even better for decarbonization are electric trains, electric trams, trolleybus, they run directly from electric grid.

Kon5ole 3d ago
>China still produced only 11% of electricity from solar, Germany 18%, so in this metric Germany is better I think it's more interesting to compare actual production in this case. Here is a truly mindblowing statistic: China's solar panels already produce more than twice the total amount of electricity consumed by Germany per year. China's solar growth is equivalent to "one Germany" every 2 years. Batteries follow a similar curve to solar panels, and I disagree strongly that they should not be used for grid stabilization. In fact, nothing stabilizes the grid better than batteries. They should of course also replace fossil fuels in transportation as well, and that's been happening for years now. I recall many similar arguments for EV's as we now see for grid storage. "It's too expensive", "We can't make enough batteries". Turns out it wasn't, and we could. I'm sure we can again, and China is basically proving it repeatedly. All that our politicians in the west need to do is get out of the way, and I'm sure it will solve itself without any further involvement from them.