“A Sunday almost without coal power”

German coal plants on last Sunday contributed the lowest amount of electricity to the country’s power mix ever recorded in recent times, energy think tank Agora Energiewende* said in a press release. Power production from coal and lignite plants stood at just 8 gigawatt (GW) at the lowest point, while power production from renewables peaked at over 55 GW on the sunny and windy Sunday, according to the think tank. Nuclear plants reduced their production to 5 GW, it added. Solar, wind and other renewable power production on average stood at nearly 36 GW during the weekend, equalling about 64 percent of German power consumption, Agora Energiewende explained. “Constellations like this will be perfectly normal in 2030,” the think tank’s head Patrick Graichen said, adding that “inflexible power plants no longer will have a place in the power system as they only spoil the prices”.

Read the press release in German here and an article on Deutsche Welle in English here.

For background, see the CLEW factsheet Germany’s renewable generation peaks remain shrouded in data fog.

*Like the Clean Energy Wire, Agora Energiewende is a project funded by Stiftung Mercator and the European Climate Foundation.