Glass half full, I suppose. Germany is in the grip of an unusual and prolonged drought -- clear skies, intense daytime heat, no rain.<p>> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78gn8zvrx4o" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78gn8zvrx4o</a><p>I'm near Graz, in Austria, where we're also in the middle of a drought and in truth I can't remember a summer as hot as this one...
I was going to write that too, same thing in France: warmest month ever recorded since 1900, 35% sunnier than usual, large fires in places which rarely had small ones in the past, 4 consecutive heat waves in a bit more than a month... nothing to be happy about
It's truly unbelievable hot right now, this "good news" of solar production is pretty sad actually
Southern Germany to be more precise. Northern Germany is slightly affected, but nothing unusual.
To be frank the best summer I’ve ever had in Berlin. Everyday warm and sunny and love it.
Europe is only going to get hotter and more dry for the foreseeable future.<p><i>Extreme Heat Has Transformed What Summer Means Across Generations in Europe</i> - <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/01/world/europe/europe-summer-heat-germany-climate-change.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/01/world/europe/europe-summe...</a> | <a href="https://archive.today/XsX2m" rel="nofollow">https://archive.today/XsX2m</a> - August 1st, 2026<p><i>Europe’s Heatwaves Are a Taste of the Climate Costs Yet to Come</i> - <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-07-27/europe-s-heatwaves-are-a-taste-of-the-climate-change-costs-yet-to-come" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-07-27/europe...</a> | <a href="https://archive.today/AqWba" rel="nofollow">https://archive.today/AqWba</a> - July 27th, 2026<p><i>Why Is Europe Warming Twice as Fast as the World Average?</i> - <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-26/europe-heat-wave-how-record-breaking-temperatures-cause-widespread-disruption" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-26/europe-he...</a> | <a href="https://archive.today/o68OH" rel="nofollow">https://archive.today/o68OH</a> - June 26th, 2026
TLDR: 3 reasons. First the quickest warming is actually the poles (technically the south pole) which means the North pole cools Europe less. Europe's reduction in CO2 and other pollutants output, cause both more sunlight to hit the ground in Europe and make the likelihood of big airflows coming from the South (ie. Sahara) larger.<p>And yeah, my read is that this is more arguments in favor of: it doesn't matter which way CO2 evolves, we'll need to take control over the climate if we want cities to remain where they are.
Yeah, but one time in 1389 there was a heat wave! /s
Germany has still one of the highest electricity and energy prices among developed nations which tremendously hurts its industrial base. That has to change too unless this cannot really be called a success I think.
The electricity prices for the industry are around the same since 2014: <a href="https://www.bdew.de/service/daten-und-grafiken/bdew-strompreisanalyse/" rel="nofollow">https://www.bdew.de/service/daten-und-grafiken/bdew-strompre...</a>
The further we go down the renewables route the less we depend on despotic states for our energy.<p>Energy may well be cheap in the US but you have been paying for that for decades through military misadventures in the middle east.
Whenever I see news like this one I feel bad for us in Greece... we have so much sun yet we don't utilize it to the maximum we could for generating electricity and our KWh price is one of the most expensive in Europe. It's a pitty the government doesn't invest in solar or encourage households to do so :-(
Yey, we contribute 432 kWh to that. Northern Germany, small 6.3 kWp system.
12 TWh
Or 12 trillion nuclear power plants with a capacity of 1 Wh each
But how many AAA-batteries is that?
[delayed]
Standard NiMH AAA battery is ~1Wh so 12 Trillion (12,000,000,000,000)
To answer tyromaniac's question that is dead and therefore I can reply to: The United States utility companies bill by the kWh, so American-centric news will report in multiples of that unit.<p>And as a sidenote, why do people downvote a question rather than answer it? Some of us like answering questions and deadening a question removes that ability.
Climate change has come through for us once again
> He noted that the term “solar subsidy” can be misleading, as it implies that every kilowatt-hour of solar electricity fed into the grid is fully funded by public money.<p>> The IWR explained that Germany’s Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) operates on a differential cost model for new photovoltaic systems. Under the mechanism, electricity generated by solar installations is first sold on the power exchange, with the resulting market revenues credited to the EEG account. Only the difference between the market price and the statutory feed-in tariff is compensated through the EEG account.<p>Wait, this is still being subsidized by taxpayers? <i>And</i> Germany has some of the highest energy prices in Europe?<p>I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. On the one hand folks are happy to tout solar and wind as "the cheapest energy you can get" and on the other we have the market realities of what consumers and taxpayers are paying. There's a policy failure <i>somewhere</i> if the cheapness to produce energy this way is not being reflected in the market and subsidy structure. Does anyone have an analysis of wtf is going on?
[dead]