Wind Energy Potential of Germany

The partial switch to natural gas also lays the foundations for a feasible solution to the problem of storing excess power: power to gas, in which excess solar and wind power is used make hydrogen. Germany also plans to refine more and more bio-gas into "bio-methane," essentially bio-gas with properties nearly identical to natural gas. For an example, see this presentation of a hybrid plant. Stephen Lacey also discusses “virtual power plants” as one of five things that need to be done in the switch to renewables.

As natural gas becomes scarcer and more expensive, Germany could produce excess solar power in the summer, store it for the winter as gas, store excess wind power as gas for hours and days at a time, and use dispatchable co generation turbines running increasingly on bio methane as natural gas is phased out. No fancy gas storage tanks will be needed; Germany will just use the gas lines it already has.

In 2010, researchers from Germany’s Fraunhofer estimated that the German gas network has a storage capacity equivalent to more than four months of German power consumption. German researchers have also estimated that 100 percent renewable power would only "require up to two weeks at a time to be bridged during the winter," far less than the four months already available. But that two-week gap can only be crossed if Germany gets rid of nuclear and resorts to natural gas as a bridge today.

In other words, Germany actually has an action plan to reach 80 percent renewable power, and natural gas is a temporary part of that plan. In addition, a number of studies have been published to show how Germany could go 100 percent renewable. And let’s not forget the organization called 100% Erneuerbar – or the study called Energy Rich Japan that German researchers and one from Japan did on how Japan could get all of its energy from renewables way back in 2003. Do we Americans have any such plan?

State	No. Turbines	Installed Capacity [MW]	Share in the net electrical energy consumption [%]
Saxony-Anhalt	2,304	3,509.16	52.1
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern	1,356	1,549.10	45.4
Schleswig-Holstein	2,675	3,014.98	44.1
Brandenburg	2,952	4,400.78	42.8
Lower Saxony	5,365	6,664.24	25.1
Thuringia	581	754.18	12.3
Rhineland-Palatinate	1,086	1,421.43	8.6
Saxony	821	943.27	8.5
Bremen	67	120.84	4.1
North Rhine-Westphalia	2,820	2,928.11	4.0
Hesse	613	587.77	2.5
Saarland	80	111.40	2.4
Bavaria	412	521.38	1.0
Baden-Württemberg	368	467.08	0.9
Hamburg	61	50.68	0.6
Berlin	1	2.00	0.0