The solar world revolution – even in Bavaria
There is an abundance of green energy worldwide. That is why we are at the beginning of a solar world revolution. It is now a matter of doing the right thing, as many countries are already doing.
It is absolutely wrong when the Chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz said in the election campaign that Germany could never supply itself 100 percent with green energy. Merz wants to tear down wind turbines “because they are ugly”.
Some exemplary developments that refute Merz:
- In 2024, almost two-thirds of the electricity in Germany was already generated from renewable sources. We can be at 100 percent green electricity in ten years at the latest. The development of renewables is growing exponentially, not linearly. In the summer of 1993, the German electricity industry claimed in a full-page ad in many German newspapers that renewable energies “could not cover more than four percent of our electricity needs, even in the long term”. Today we are at over 60 percent. Everyone embarrasses themselves as best they can.
- “We can’t get out of nuclear and coal at the same time,” they said in Bavaria just a year ago. But the last coal-fired power plant in Zolling has just been closed in Bavaria, and the last nuclear power plant was closed earlier, and surprisingly the lights did not go out in Bavaria. Bavaria’s prime minister is now proud to have the most solar energy systems in Germany. The solar age is also beginning in Bavaria. How wonderful! Söder is now banking on the sun.
- Pakistan has increased its solar power twenty-eightfold in the last two years.
- China has built up about as much renewable energy in the last ten years as the rest of the world put together. India is about to follow suit. The two billion-strong populations are now setting a good example.
- In China, solar and wind power even overtook coal in 2024, which seemed unthinkable just a short time ago.
- Poor Kenya has decided that from January 2025 it will no longer import petrol or diesel cars, but only electric cars. The African country already supplies itself almost 100 percent with green electricity from geothermal energy and wants to export green hydrogen to Germany in the future.
- Within 24 years, we have reduced the cost of producing solar and wind power by over 90 percent. This is not only an ecological, but also a unique economic success story in the development of modern technologies.
- In sunny Arab countries, solar power is already being generated for one cent per kilowatt hour. Compared to the old energy sources, this is unbeatably inexpensive.
- Photovoltaics with battery storage is now also cheaper than electricity from conventional power plants.
- We have global growth rates of renewable energies of 40, 50 and 60 percent per year.
- Compared to 1990, greenhouse gas emissions in Germany have decreased by 48%.
- According to the calculations of the International Energy Agency (IEA), this will also be the case globally from 2027.
- Demand for fossil energy sources will peak in 2025. Although the global economy will still be growing even then, CO2 emissions will shrink. That is foreseeable.
- In 2024, over 1 million new solar panels were installed in Germany, a similar number to the previous year.
- The European Union has doubled its share of green electricity from the beginning of 2022 to the end of 2023 and aims to triple it again by 2030.
- Germany has decided to produce its electricity completely CO2-free by 2035. According to the legal requirements, Germany wants to be “climate neutral” by 2045. Of course, climate researchers claim that it should and could be faster.
- The United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Norway and Chile are pursuing ambitious plans for the production of solar hydrogen.
- The ten ASEAN countries in East Asia want to increase their share of renewable energies by 70 percent by 2027 compared to 2023 – Brazil, Cuba, Argentina, Mali and other countries in Central and South Africa have similar goals.
- Renewables are contributing to a massive reduction in electricity costs worldwide, creating millions of new and sustainable jobs, reducing future flows of refugees and promoting local and regional value creation.
People all over the world will be the winners of the global solar revolution in the future, when they generate renewable electricity for one or two euro cents. “Citizens to the sun, to freedom!” – could be the hopeful motto for 2025.
But: “The good news does not testify to the new as a sure-fire success, but to a feat of strength against the old” (ZEIT, 04.07.2024).
Conclusion: the energy transition is possible, but it won’t happen by itself. It has to be fought for. Mr. Merz, sunny days lie ahead. German engineering has done a great job.
