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Every good manager knows that economic success and environmental protection only get achieved when resources are used efficiently and wisely. It makes little sense to buy a huge machine that can run only 20% of the time when you can get the job done using a much smaller machine that runs 100% all the time.

Capacity utilization (economic efficiency) of the energy feed-in power production systems in percent. Data source: http://goo.gl/GqJuy. Chart source: Wilfried Heck/.

Biomasse – biomass

Wasserkraft – hydro

EEG-Erzeugung – all combined

biogener Abfall – bio-waste

Windkraft – wind power

As the graphic above from Winfried Heck’s website shows, Germany’s overall green power efficiency, depicted by the bold “EEG-Erzeugung” curve, is approaching only 20%.

In the early 90s, biomass and hydro were the bulk of Germany’s renewable energy, and so the overall capacity utilization of its green energy back then was close to 50%. But massive subsidies lead to the large-scale installation of the far less efficient wind power and photovoltaic systems, which today are Germany’s main producers of green energy, overshadowing hydro and biomass. Thus inefficient solar and wind have since dragged the overall efficiency of Germany’s green energy supply down to just over 20%.

That’s horrendous from a technical and economic point of view. At that level, it’s only a question of a very short time before you find your competitors running circles around you.

Note in the chart that photovoltaic systems barely reach 10% of their capacity, wind barely reaches 20%. No wonder electric bills in Germany have been skyrocketing and companies are saying “auf Wiedersehen”.

Although the amount of green energy produced in Germany has gone up, it has become very inefficient overall.

Worse, the more wind and solar systems get installed, the more intermitently the conventional systems end up running, thus making them far less efficient and costlier. Result: Germany’s entire energy production system is rapidly becoming sub-par. That’s bad for the environment, the consumer’s pocket book, and for the country’s global competitiveness.

Call it communist power management. In the communist days it took 10 men to the job of one man in a free market. On the energy market, it takes 5 green generators to do the job of a single conventional generator.

Little wonder that Environment Minister Peter Altmaier says Germany’s transition to green energy is going to cost $1.3 TRILLION dollars if the madness isn’t stopped soon.