Germany Records Historic 12B KWh Solar Feed-In in July 2026

104 pointsposted 4 hours ago
by johnbarron

107 Comments

A_D_E_P_T

2 hours ago

Glass half full, I suppose. Germany is in the grip of an unusual and prolonged drought -- clear skies, intense daytime heat, no rain.

> https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78gn8zvrx4o

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...

ajmurmann

an hour ago

I think the biggest impact for Germany is gonna be economical from shipping. Much of Germany's industry is along the Rhine and they get their raw materials via barge on the Rhine. The Rhine is already close to all time low which reduces capacity and increases cost. Usually low water happens between August and November. It was already close to record low in July! I wouldn't be surprised if shipping will have to stop entirely some time this year.

I watched a report that has an interview with the CEO of a cereal factory. They get all their wheat via barges. He said they already paid €100k extra this year for low-water surcharges for shipping and that they'd need 6,500 trucks annually if they'd replace the barges with trucks.

eigenspace

13 minutes ago

Yeah. Bad timing that this also coincides with a period where the rail system is in chaos, and running beyond capacity due to overdue upgrades.

toasty228

an hour ago

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

kykat

2 hours ago

It's truly unbelievable hot right now, this "good news" of solar production is pretty sad actually

Aldipower

2 hours ago

Southern Germany to be more precise. Northern Germany is slightly affected, but nothing unusual.

poetaster

24 minutes ago

The Deutsche Wetter dienst is just as 50/50 as any meteorological service. May/June were atypically warm, but rainfall sufficient in the north east. July has been mixed extremes from Saxony to the Baltic with sufficient rain that we have not had to water the Garden. 320km north, Grandmother territory, same. The droughts of previous years were much more destructive. We'll see when the crops come in.

atoav

9 minutes ago

[delayed]

toomuchtodo

2 hours ago

Europe is only going to get hotter and more dry for the foreseeable future.

Extreme Heat Has Transformed What Summer Means Across Generations in Europe - https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/01/world/europe/europe-summe... | https://archive.today/XsX2m - August 1st, 2026

Europe’s Heatwaves Are a Taste of the Climate Costs Yet to Come - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2026-07-27/europe... | https://archive.today/AqWba - July 27th, 2026

Why Is Europe Warming Twice as Fast as the World Average? - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-26/europe-he... | https://archive.today/o68OH - June 26th, 2026

toasty228

an hour ago

> Why Is Europe Warming Twice as Fast as the World Average?

You'll find articles about every single land mass "warming up faster than average"... that's because the average include the 70% of the planet that is covered by oceans, these don't warm up nearly as fast as landmasses. We're all pretending we'll manage +1.5c or +2c by 2050, and in the average Joe's head that not much, in reality we're already fucked, July was +4c above normals in France, and we're in 2026 not 2025.

Australia is Warming Faster than Global Average: https://www.statista.com/chart/20404/mean-annual-temperature...

China warming faster than global average: https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202607/02/WS6a462fd5a310986e...

Europe’s warming accelerates beyond global trend: https://defence-industry-space.ec.europa.eu/europes-warming-...

Warming in Brazil is already higher than the global average: https://www.wwf.org.br/en/?90683/Climate-Warming-in-Brazil-i...

Africa is warming more rapidly than the global average: https://www.cseindia.org/africa-is-warming-more-rapidly-than...

spwa4

2 hours ago

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.

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.

actionfromafar

an hour ago

We could start by running container ships on High Sulphur Fuel Oil. Same CO2, more cushion against Sun Rays.

fhdkweig

an hour ago

We stopped high sulfur when we realized it was causing acid rain. CO2 is also acidifying the oceans, so there aren't a lot of things we can pump into the atmosphere without consequence. Best to avoid doing that altogether.

citrin_ru

30 minutes ago

> We stopped high sulfur when we realized it was causing acid rain

Coal AFAIK a bigger source of acid rains and world has not stopped using coal.

spwa4

an hour ago

We won't stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere (Germany, India and China actually increased coal burning in 2026, in all 3 cases despite all the good news about solar installations). Also we can't prevent fossil fuel producers from digging up fossil fuels.

And, because of entropy, reducing CO2 already in the atmosphere is a non-starter. For one thing, one can reasonably assume that would at minimum require doubling human energy output (because unmixing costs a lot more energy than mixing)

I mean if you put the belief behind the whole CO2 reduction in words, it's like this: if we slightly reduce CO2 output (not stop, reduce by single digit percent), we won't have to adapt. And if you put it like that it becomes easy to see: "no way in hell that's going to be true".

So there's not much of a choice: geoengineering it is. Next question: which method?

rawgabbit

34 minutes ago

Well... the holy grail is something that traps CO2, slows down hurricanes-typhoons, slows down desertification, makes urban heat sinks more bearable. What that could be, I have no idea.

spwa4

a minute ago

You are obviously referring to trees. So assuming that's what you mean: that won't work.

https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-dont-we-just-plant-lot-t...

Trees quickly reach equilibrium at which point CO2 out equals CO2 in. While they can sequester some CO2 while growing. They also generally cause an albedo increase (forests trap heat). So, for arguments sake, the opposite would actually help more: destroying forests reduces albedo reducing the planet's heat uptake, while not releasing most of the CO2 in the atmosphere, in fact, that causes it to get flushed into the ocean and it won't come back for millenia at least. Despite appearances, forest fires actually help against global warming. But not much.

In other words: right now to merely pause global warming we'd have to stop 99.7% of CO2 usage. If every square meter of the planet was covered in trees, merely to stop global warming from getting worse every year we'd have to stop ... 99.7% of CO2 usage (maybe 98% would do for 2-3 years while the trees are growing)

You want a suggestion that would actually do something? Seeding the oceans would help. It would mean global warming can be paused by a mere drop of 92% of fossil fuel usage, a big increase, at the cost of a HUGE loss of oceanic biodiversity. So I hope it's clear that while that is a far better suggestion, it is very far from a solution, and doesn't come without costs.

I'm sorry to repeat, but no: the planet will not help us and stay static if we just "stop destroying nature". And building a few parks in cities, like it seems your real suggestion is, will do nothing at all.

ajmurmann

an hour ago

I would a well. Unfortunately, it seems that deliberate geoengineering always brings up concerns from people who think it's more ethical to just state at the lever as the trolly goes by. I partially blame the legal system. There won't be a lawsuit about not having deliberately spread more sulfur oxide.

LeBit

2 hours ago

Yeah, but one time in 1389 there was a heat wave! /s

RandomLensman

an hour ago

Somewhat similar to 1992, which had a very hot August and 2nd half of July.

dyauspitr

an hour ago

Yeah I was in Europe for a month last month and this summer was the best ever. It was nice and hot everywhere I went. As a tourist I loved it but I’m the kind of person that looks forward to day long hikes in 110 degree weather.

lava_pidgeon

an hour ago

Either you are a super human walking in water bowling water.

Or some US america who does not get fact that this context is talking about German Energy and the European heat wave and Fahrenheit is not used any metric in this part of the world. I considered especially rude that you assume the reader should convert the value though Fahrenheit is mostly used in USA.

sajithdilshan

2 hours ago

To be frank the best summer I’ve ever had in Berlin. Everyday warm and sunny and love it.

adrianN

29 minutes ago

People are literally dying due to the heat.

toasty228

an hour ago

In 2026 it should be criminal to have such stupid opinions about climate change, the only valid reason to have such takes is if you're a boomer about to kick the bucket.

What's next? "BaCk iN mY DaYs SumMeRs WeRe HoT ToO" ?

mitthrowaway2

an hour ago

I don't think any opinions should be criminal, but some deserve downvotes.

toasty228

an hour ago

Cool, a quarter of the country is in a "D4 exceptional drought" (1 in 50 years), half of the rest in a 1 in 30 years drought and the rest in good ol' regular drought. But the sun do be bright indeed

layer8

an hour ago

Always look on the bright side of life.

umpalumpaaa

2 hours ago

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.

eigenspace

an hour ago

Germany's electrical prices are mostly in line with it's neighbours, not super high. If a company makes good usage of batteries, they could actually have quite low prices since the electrical price undergoes huge swings throughout the day. All spring through fall the spot price goes to or near zero at midday almost daily.

Throughout the winter, wind is a bit more random but causes spells of high prices and spells of low prices.

The main thing causing electrical usage prices to be high in Germany is grid charges for the gigantic grid infrastructure buildout.

Germany's electrical grid is one of the most resilient and interconnected in the world, and it's rapidly being upgraded to accommodate the huge build-out of wind, solar, and batteries that is underway. I agree that the government should probably shoulder more of these grid-costs to take some burden off of major industrial users.

umpalumpaaa

an hour ago

Even if prices were in line with Germanys neighbors, that does not mean a lot. Germanys industry is notoriously energy hungry. Germany is home of the biggest chemical companies in the world and they need easy access to gas, oil, electricity etc. Also the car industry is obviously still big. And so on. Most countries in the world lost their industrial base during the last 20-40 years but Germany kept it for the most part because of several factors. But this means that the average company in Germany needs easier and cheaper access to energy and raw materials than other average companies in other countries

eigenspace

an hour ago

I was just pointing out that the claim that it has abnormally high energy prices among developed nations isn't quite true.

I do agree though, that even just having 'normal' energy prices for a developed nation makes it very hard to be an industrial powerhouse.

IMO the only way forward is for Germany to build more energy infrastructure. Most importantly, we need more solar wind and batteries, but we also need upgrades to gas peaker plants, and more long-distance HVDC connections to neighbouring countries to better smooth out variations in weather that are inherent to intermittent renewables.

Doubling down on fossil fuels won't bring down Germany's energy costs.

KellyCriterion

32 minutes ago

-- If a company makes good usage of batteries, they could actually have quite low prices since the electrical price undergoes huge swings throughout the day --

Either, you are not from Germany or your example is a clear MBA-101-Bobo-Textbook example :-D

woodpanel

17 minutes ago

> Germany's electrical prices are mostly in line with it's neighbours

PL: ~21ct/kWh

LX: ~20ct/kWh

AT: ~19ct/kWh

NL: ~19ct/kWh

BE: ~17ct/kWh

FR: ~16ct/kWh

DK: ~9ct/kWh

Germany: 23ct/kWh (or: about 25% higher than the EU average)[0]

Of course Germany "is mostly in line" if your ideology depends on it.

[0] https://cubeconcepts.de/en/europes-industrial-electricity-pr...

tonyedgecombe

an hour ago

The further we go down the renewables route the less we depend on despotic states for our energy.

Energy may well be cheap in the US but you have been paying for that for decades through military misadventures in the middle east.

Lord-Jobo

an hour ago

It’s not possible to truly estimate what our military costs would be without those conflicts, but I would be interested in our energy costs if you incorporated the military costs into that. I’m willing to bet we pay more than nearly anyone else if you lump it in relatively fairly.

bradfa

an hour ago

We've gotten pretty good at digging holes in the ground and there's a lot of existing energy down there under our land (and near-by water). So yes, we've certainly had misadventures in the middle east, but we've also embraced the "drill baby drill" mantra of late.

Texas is probably our national leader in terms of deploying solar and wind power, which feels ironic but is totally rational and logical.

clarionbell

an hour ago

Who is making all those solar cells and batteries? I'll give you a hint, it's not a European country.

toasty228

an hour ago

> The further we go down the renewables route the less we depend on despotic states for our energy.

80% of solar panels/batteries/windmills are made in China. We wouldn't even be able to make them without fossil fuels in the first place. Not even talking about the electronics that is needed

eigenspace

an hour ago

German wind turbines largely don't come from China, but even if they did, the difference is that if China stopped selling us solar panels, batteries and wind turbines, the existing infrastructure would continue to function for decades to come while we work out a domestic replacement supply chain.

This is in stark contrast to fossil fuels, where it's infeasible to stockpile more than a few months of usage, and if suppliers turn off the tap, you're at their mercy almost instantly.

If China stopped supplying solar panels or batteries, it'd spark a frenzy of activity and demand for locally produced replacements, and there would be enough time for those to come online.

KellyCriterion

30 minutes ago

20 years ago, Germany was among the topleaders in Solar Research & Manufacturing, the Government back then killed the opportunity for they country.

mertbio

an hour ago

The electricity prices for the industry are around the same since 2014: https://www.bdew.de/service/daten-und-grafiken/bdew-strompre...

AlexandrB

an hour ago

No they aren't, it looks like the prices doubled and the government significantly cut taxes to hide the increase. That's not to mention the 3 year price spike during 2021-2023. Who's paying for the lost revenue from the tax cuts?

mertbio

an hour ago

That doesn't change the fact that the prices didn't change for the companies therefore OP's argument about this hurt the companies doesn't have any basis.

umpalumpaaa

an hour ago

Yeah and the tax reduction will end in 2028. What I said still stands: German electricity prices for the industry are and will be one of the highest in the world.

tfourb

24 minutes ago

The tax reduction will almost certainly be extended and not be allowed to sunset. Industry electricity costs are more or less in line with other highly developed countries around the world and will remain so. Also, many larger industrial companies do not source their electricity from the common grid, but have dedicated power plants and increasingly their own investments in renewable energy production.

nashashmi

an hour ago

They are also one of the few nations with high export to import ratios. If it is weighing down industry then it is a great loss factor in the race against china.

ajsnigrutin

an hour ago

The problem with electricity for industrial use is, that you also need electricity during long, dark, cloudy winters, when there is very little solar power available. Somehow all the "green" supporters are all afraid of nuclear powerplants for some reason and instead prefer coal, even though there's more radioactive crap going into the air from that than from nuclear plants.

tfourb

19 minutes ago

Hungary just instituted quite extreme power savings policies (including stopping all industrial train traffic during the day), because it can't cool its nuclear power plant due to a lack of water in the Danube and 40% of its electricity production went bye bye. Same situation in Romania and France had similar problems a few years ago and will likely have them again this year.

"Green" supporters prefer renewable energy, because it allows you to build a resilient and distributed network of production, distribution and storage that can't be easily disrupted by any one shock event at the fraction of the cost of nuclear (if you count subsidies and government financed research, not even considering the socialization of insurance against accidents).

NKosmatos

2 hours ago

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 :-(

victorbjorklund

4 minutes ago

Just do it. Don’t wait for the govt to tell you. Solar is almost free at this point.

Rnonymous

2 hours ago

I see this in so many sunny countries, which is such a shame. So what prevents you from just installing panels on your roof?

pyvpx

an hour ago

Athens can’t build flat, stable, standardised side walks. The Italians own and operate their trains and when 50 students died in a very preventable head on collision no one has been held accountable in any real fashion.

Solar panels? They gotta fix the brain drain first. Anyone with the capability to bounce understandably does.

The only people with money are Israeli and Qatari real estate investors.

tonyedgecombe

an hour ago

GDP per capita in Greece is €29,696, in Germany it is €65,303. Rich countries can afford to decarbonise more quickly.

toasty228

an hour ago

Solar panels are basically free at that point, they're pay themselves in <2 years in Greece. We're not talking about a 20k euros investment, even 1k would go a long way

Hendrikto

28 minutes ago

Even way less than that. 1000W solar panels + 800W micro inverter can be bought for roughly 250€ right now.

scary-size

2 hours ago

Yey, we contribute 432 kWh to that. Northern Germany, small 6.3 kWp system.

tfourb

17 minutes ago

1.8 MWh, highest production since we built our 12 kWp system five years ago.

stkdump

an hour ago

817 kWh here. Though june last year was the record at 904 kWh. Maybe the effect is that solar panels lose efficiency when too hot.

swiftcoder

an hour ago

> Maybe the effect is that solar panels lose efficiency when too hot

They do. One of the odd fringe benefits of agrovoltaics is that the plants beneath the panel slightly lower the panel temperatures through transpiration.

madduci

an hour ago

530 kWh here in July pushed to the grid with a 5kWp system

clarionbell

an hour ago

It would be nice if that led to lower prices. All the comparisons I could find are showing Germany near the top for electricity price.

https://energyfactbook.com/world/electricity-prices-by-count...

dminuoso

36 minutes ago

Merit-order pricing keeps consumer prices high.

Whether it is the best mechanism to incentivize a transition towards renewable energy sources is debatable, but OP at least implies that we’re on the right direction.

At some point we will have enough renewables to turn off the old and expensive gas and coal plants. Until then we just have to live with the feeling that it’s an investment towards future generations.

Perhaps humanities biggest flaw is to prioritize instant gratification over long term benefits.

woofwoofwoof

25 minutes ago

Second heatwave in two months helps, I guess

coffeebeqn

2 hours ago

12 TWh

dn3500

14 minutes ago

Also about 16 GW. They don't say what the installed capacity is but average midday generation is 40 GW for usage of 40% which is not bad.

4k0hz

an hour ago

Or 12 trillion nuclear power plants with a capacity of 1 Wh each

tonyedgecombe

an hour ago

I'd like a nuclear power plant with a capacity of 1 Wh to play with.

giva

an hour ago

I don't get it

12B KWh = 12M MWh = 12,000 TWh?

b3orn

38 minutes ago

You skipped GWh.

12B kWh = 12M MWh = 12k GWh = 12 TWh.

fhdkweig

2 hours ago

To answer tyromaniac's question that is dead and therefore I can't reply to: The United States utility companies bill by the kWh, so American-centric news will report in multiples of that unit.

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.

tuetuopay

an hour ago

European utilities also bill by the kWh, the markets bill by the MW or MWh (depending on the market product), yet we’d still use TWh to write this number.

The American way of handling units is always surprising.

john_strinlai

an hour ago

>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.

if its just [dead] (no [flagged]), as the case with tyromaniac, that's automated by the site (suspected spam/ai/bot/etc.).

the comment can be vouched for to lose the [dead] status by users with 500+ karma (i think? maybe 1000)

comments don't gain [dead] due to downvoting.

fhdkweig

an hour ago

oh, so when https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html says:

>What does [dead] mean?

>The post was killed by software, user flags, or moderators.

"moderators" isn't referring to just anybody with a downvote capability? They mean just the website owners, e.g. dang, etc.?

john_strinlai

an hour ago

correct, moderators in that context is dang/tomhow, not just users with downvoting capabilities. user flags will always have [flagged], otherwise downvoting just makes the text gray

exabrial

an hour ago

Good progress. Germany also shut down its nuclear sector and made up for it by burning crap tons of coal.

eigenspace

an hour ago

Coal usage in Germany has continued to shrink throughout the nuclear shutdown. It's at the lowest level it's been since the early days of industrialization.

I agree that nuclear should not have been phased out at the very least until coal was gone, but don't make up shit and say that they made up for the nuclear exit by burning more coal, that is untrue. Germany made up for it by building more renewables.

k_g_b_

11 minutes ago

This. Plus the fact that it would have been politically absolutely infeasible to get anyone except the Greens to agree on a coal before nuclear phase out at any point until at least 2018. SPD, CDU especially were and are very close to to the coal industry (voters, company boards, etc.).

In addition, without the Greens-pushed and initiated renewables subsidies, there would have been basically no big market worldwide for solar manufacturing to even be built out the way it was and all solar tech and industrialization would likely not be as good as it is now.

myk9001

10 minutes ago

> ... don't make up shit and say that they made up for the nuclear exit by burning more coal, that is untrue.

It's true, though. Emotions seem to be clouding your judgment. Renewables could've been replacing coal. Instead, they're making up for the lost nuclear capacity.

eigenspace

a few seconds ago

Renewables are replacing coal and nuclear simultaneously. Coal usage was consistently dropping before and continued to consistently drop after the nuclear phase out.

I agree if coal was banned before nuclear, the new renewable capcacity added could have done more to replace a huge source of emissions faster. It was a failure of education, media, and political will that Germany phased out nuclear before coal.

That does not however mean that coal usage increased after nuclear was phased out, such a claim is just false.

bcjdjsndon

2 hours ago

Climate change has come through for us once again

eigenspace

an hour ago

The elevated temperatures actually reduce the efficiency of solar panels. The increase is due to more panels, not more solar flux on Germany.

cassepipe

37 minutes ago

Turns out the glass was half-empty and half-empty then

Aldipower

2 hours ago

But it is (should be) cheap to power the AC now.

tonyedgecombe

an hour ago

That reminds me of my friend who wants to fly around the world to see the Great Barrier Reef before it's gone.

tyromaniac

2 hours ago

Anyone know why they dont just say 12TWh?

swolios

24 minutes ago

because it drives clicks

AlexandrB

an hour ago

> 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.

> 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.

Wait, this is still being subsidized by taxpayers? And Germany has some of the highest energy prices in Europe?

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 somewhere 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?

andor

43 minutes ago

The "subsidy" (Einspeisevergütung) is a fixed price paid for power sold to electricity providers, for those who don't want the complexity of taking part in the energy market. It was supposed to accelerate the transition to renewable electricity production by making financing more predictable.

And it worked very well, as it started the global solar boom. Because it's not necessary anymore as an incentive, it's slowly getting phased out.

The Einspeisevergütung is not the reason why consumer electricity is expensive in Germany, though. That's more related to our grid.

mertbio

an hour ago

I'm a consumer in Germany, and I pay 250€ for 1.200 kWh (my yearly consumption). I don't know anyone who is paying those high prices mentioned in the articles. There are many electricity providers in Germany, and that creates competition; therefore, you get a lot of cash back by switching providers.

clarionbell

an hour ago

Pretty much. Average household doesn't see this though, not directly. The industry on the other hand does, very much so.

madwolf

an hour ago

Soo... 12 TWh? Isn't that why we have metric prefixes? So we don't have to say that there's 12 billion of something...

swiftcoder

an hour ago

Outside of tech circles, it's pretty normal to avoid using the uncommon prefixes. Nobody says the Earth has a 40 megameter circumference...

SoftTalker

an hour ago

Billion can mean different things in different parts of the world. kilo-, mega-, giga-, tera- are the standard prefixes.

fred_is_fred

an hour ago

120 trillion dWh is how I like to think about this. Very impressive.