This year, 70% of Portugal's energy comes from renewables

[one...two...tree 2,762]

The generation of electricity from renewable sources supplied around 70% of consumption. This is the data highlight of national electricity consumption recorded in the first quarter of 2013. These values are primarily due to the existence of favourable weather conditions for hydroelectric and wind energy generation.

Hydroelectric generation between January and March increased 312% compared to the preceding year, supplying 37% of consumption, while wind energy generation increased 60% in the same period and supplied 27% of consumption, according to data from the energy grids manager. These two energy sources have the most weight in generation by renewable sources, which almost doubled in the first quarter, after accounting for only 37% of consumption in 2012.

Wind power in this quarter - 36% above the average - was the highest ever. Electricity consumption fell 2.3% in the first quarter of 2013, compared to the same period of the previous year. This value is reduced to 0.4% when corrected for the effects of temperature and number of business days.

According to João Milheiro Batista, of the Market Information Area, "these figures confirm the slowdown in the trend of consumption decline, which became apparent at the end of last year. In March there was even an upturn, with 4.7% growth, or 1.6% corrected for temperature and business days", added the REN officer. 2012 was the second consecutive year of consumption decline, with an accrued fall of 6% from the maximum figure that was recorded in 2010, registering values equivalent to those of 2006.

Generation by coal-fired and natural gas thermoelectric power stations fell 29% and 44% in the first quarter, respectively, compared to the same period of 2012. The Portuguese electricity system remained an exporter between January and March, selling abroad the equivalent to 6% of national consumption.

http://www.ren.pt/me.../?culture=en-GB

[mota bhai 2,675]

Portugal is so tiny I could power Portugal with the methane that comes out of my fat azz.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Portugal is so tiny I could power Portugal with the methane that comes out of my fat azz.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

Learning from Germany's Renewable Energy Transition

Germany is moving forward to replace fossil fuels with renewables faster than most countries. But there is always pushback, most recently in the form of much media discourse about rising electricity prices spearheaded by the Federal Minister of Environment Peter Altmaier. Like many politicians, he is already preparing for national elections in September, so let’s take an honest look at this discourse surrounding electricity prices and how they affect Germany’s move toward renewables.

Ever since the Fukushima catastrophe two years ago, Germans have redoubled their efforts to phase out of nuclear energy and fossil fuels in favor of renewable energy — called the “Energiewende” (energy transition) that began in 2000. Minister Altmaier, CDU (Christian Democratic Party — center-right) believes that the recent rise in electricity prices for households poses the biggest threat to the success of the Energiewende, because rising household electricity bills endanger public support for renewables. He thus proposed a plan to prevent an “explosion of electricity prices.”

First of all: why care about what happens in Germany? For one thing, German policy-makers played a dominant role in the evolution of feed-in tariffs (FITs) for renewables (the term is actually an Anglicization of the German “Stromeinspeisungsgesetz”). FITs are the most elegant and effective policy instrument to incentivize renewable energy deployment in a cost-effective manner. Germany remains on the forefront of optimizing FITs to account for the differences in renewable technologies and decreasing market prices over time. Germany also has an impressive record of success in deploying renewable energy (especially solar), and set uniquely high targets of efficiency improvement and renewables deployment. Once we realize that the Energiewende is not a big government program by naïve tree-huggers, we can use the German example to help show that renewable energy can and does create jobs and lower costs.

The discourse surrounding the Energiewende has ranged from whether the grid expansion can keep up with renewable energy deployment, to whether the grid liability can be maintained (yes it can), and whether shutting down nuclear power in Germany will just result in imports of nuclear power from France or the Czech Republic (it hasn’t). The current discourse raises the questions of whether household electricity consumers should pay less, whether industry should pay more, and whether the Energiewende can be done cheaper.

http://theenergycollective.com/josephromm/203306/germany-transition-renewable-energy

[TBoneTX 46,120]

*** Thread moved from P&R to Off Topic -- topic is of general economic interest. ***