Germany meets 60% of its electricity demand from solar
Germany has been the real reason that the solar industry has come so far so fast. The huge subsidies given the German government 
has allowed the solar industry to expand from 5 GW in 2008 to more than 30 GW in 2012. The yearly fall in subsidies made solar companies more competitive and forced them to drop costs every year to keep up with the IRR. The country installed more than 7 GW in each of the last 3 years, despite subsidies being brought down by more than 50%. Germany is the cause of the solar panel prices now being available for 65c/watt down from $4/watt in 2008.
Read more about German Solar Panels.
Germany now has a solar capacity of 32 GW which is almost 2 times that the capacity of the next biggest country Italy. The country managed to supply almost 60% of its demand during noon on a June day, when millions of its solar panels generated peak power. Note Germany only gets ~5% of its total electricity supply from solar energy, as the solar radiation is quite low in Germany. If the same number of solar panels were installed in India or California, then the solar power generation for the full year would have been at least 70-90% more.
The country has done more for the green movement and climate change than probably any other country in the world. Though people might criticize the country for spending so much money for such little power, history will see Germany in a very different light. The German government with its enlightened policy has changed the world in the same way, as the US government did with its investment in the Internet and Human Genome project. The returns from these projects cannot be measured in monetary terms alone for the benefits that they gave the larger world.
Germany set a new world record for solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity production at 23.4 GW on June 6th, 2013 at 2:19 PM, as indicated by SMA Solar Technology AG’s (Niestetal, Germany) web based performance tool.
Germany’s peak electricity demand during the day is roughly 60 GW, and as such this allowed the nation to meet 39% of its peak electricity needs with PV. Germany, Italy world’s top nations for PV. According to the Federal Network Agency, Germany installed a total of 33.5 GW of PV by the end of April 2013. While Italy meets a higher percentage of its annual electricity demand with PV at 5.6% in 2012 versus Germany’s 4.8%, Germany retains the most installed PV capacity as well as the highest percentage of peak demand met by solar.
YOU CAN WATCH SOLAR POWER GENERATION IN REAL TIME IN GERMANY THANKS TO SMA SOLAR.
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