Renewable Energies in Germany 2007

According to estimates by the Association of Energy Balances e.V., the primary energy consumption in Germany in 2007 accounted for 13,878 petajoules (PJ) and decreased by 4.8 percent compared to the previous year.
The share of renewable energies in the primary energy consumption rose from 5.54 percent to 6,6 percent. This corresponds to an amount of 921.4 PJ.

With a share of almost three quarters, biomass in its various manifestations (biomass, waste [biogenic share] and bio-fuels) played a prominent role in the generation of electricity, heat and biofuels. At least 79 percent of the generation of heat was covered by solid biomass*.

The share of wind energy amounted to 15.4 percent, that of hydro-electric power around 8 percent. Of secondary importance in the production of renewable energy are solar and geothermal energy.

47.4 percent of the renewable energies are used for the generation of electricity, followed by heat supply with a share of 35.3 percent and the production of fuels with a share of around 17.3 percent.

*Solid biomass includes agricultural and forestry products such as forest timber, fast growing tree species and cultivated energy or cereal crops as well as cutting waste from landscape conservation.

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Source: Arbeitsgemeinschaft Energiebilanzen e.V.

Now the question: Why are not more stationary fuel cell systems in operation now, which, because of their electrochemical effectiveness are preordained for both, electricity and heat production? And, depending upon construction and billing methods, produce almost equal amounts of thermal and electric power. With an intelligent network these fuel cells systems can be connected to the virtual power plants and used for direct heating and/or air conditioning of buildings. These units already are working in pilot plants today, but at this time with natural gas as primary energy source and reformers for the production of hydrogen.

The goal must be, to create the decentralized production and use of direct solar (organic)-hydrogen. This will reduce both the dependency on imported primary energy, as well as the cost of electricity, heat and fuel. This also means a drastically change in the current electricity system to entirely new qualities.

Then you can also drastically reduce the high losses in the current process for the production and distribution of electricity and their cost. This is a valuable target, technically feasible already now, the question is: Who will start in coping with this challenge? At the moment, everyone has the chance to do so.