America and Germany Getting Their (distributed) Clean Energy Just Desserts (see chart}

[kristopher]

I wrote often about distributed renewables vs centralized thermal. I point out that the distributed grid doesn't eliminate utilities, but it does change their positioning from a centralized bottle-neck through which all energy must pass, to a peripheral role that supplements or augments the distributed resources. This chart is a good illustration of that.

America and Germany Getting Their Clean Energy Just Desserts
By John Farrell
December 2, 2011

Germany is the unquestioned world leader in renewable energy. By mid-2011, the European nation generated over 20 percent of its electricity from wind and solar power alone, and had created over 400,000 jobs in the industry.

The sweet German success is no accident, however, and the following pie chart illustrates the results of a carefully crafted recipe for renewable energy.


As the chart illustrates, more than half of Germany's enormous renewable energy generation is in the hands of "ordinary people," according to the German Renewable Energy Agency. This outcome is more than golden in color, but has been a gold-clad economic opportunity for the German people, who have used the opportunity to become renewable energy producers and improve their economic security in a time of world economic crisis.

The policy recipe behind this golden success is called a feed-in tariff and...

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2011/12/america-and-germany-getting-their-clean-energy-just-desserts

[msongs]

1. rooftop solar for all suitable roofs, NOT corporate solar plants that control the power nt

[kristopher]

2. You need the corporate plants to build the mfg base which makes rooftop affordable.

Solar isn't like fossil fuels or nuclear. Let the corporations install solar PV. Encourage corporations to install solar PV.

Why?

It's much more like them buying enough business computers to make home computing affordable than it is like they are building multibillion dollar energy plants that require highly trained specialists to run it on mined fuels available from a narrow range of suppliers.

The two concepts couldn't be more dis-similar.