Clean power
supplied almost all of Germany’s power demand for the first time on Sunday,
marking a milestone for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “Energiewende” policy to
boost renewables while phasing out nuclear and fossil fuels.
Solar and wind power peaked at 2 p.m. local time
on Sunday, allowing renewables to supply 45.5 GW as demand was 45.8 GW,
according to provisional data by Agora Energiewende, a research institute in
Berlin. Power prices turned negative during several
15-minute periods yesterday, dropping as low as minus 50 euros ($57) a MWh,
according to data from Epex Spot.
Germany’s power supply by hour. Source: Agora Energiewende.
Countries
around Europe are building increasing amounts of renewable capacity in order to
reduce their carbon emissions and boost supply security. Last year Denmark’s
wind farms supplied 140 percent of demand, while the U.K. had no coal-fired
power stations meeting electricity demand for about four hours on May 10 as a
result of plant breakdowns.
“Events like this highlight that eventually we
may need to start curtailing because of market-wide oversupply,” said
Monne Depraetere, an analyst for Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “In the long-run,
that may provide a case to build technologies that can manage this oversupply —
for example more interconnectors or energy storage.”
Renewables
were only able to meet demand because of Germany’s strong export capability,
the analyst said. Even when solar and wind peaked, conventional power plants
were still supplying 7.7 GW.
Merkel’s
unprecedented shift to clean energy has squeezed margins at coal and gas plants
while driving up costs for consumers in Europe’s biggest power market. The
increased flows of clean energy have also put pressure on the grid to the point
that the country is considering excluding certain regions from future onshore
wind power auctions if local grids are already struggling to keep up with large
volumes of renewable energy supplies.
“If Germany
was an island, with no export cables, this would be technically impossible
because you always need to have some thermal generation running as a back up
supply for when the wind or solar drops off,” Depraetere said.
“Germany
consumed 100 percent renewable energy yesterday, but we’re unlikely to see
clean energy supply 100 percent of generation anytime soon,” he said.
©2016
Bloomberg News
