DW: How Putin made Europe go greener faster.

[Stan]

[Joeboy]

Nice one Stan. I thought this 1 month in. Nothing better than a land grabbing, fuel controlling maniac to force focus rather than dawdling along.

[Stinsy]

I’d said many years before that Germany was insane to turn off their nuclear and allow Putin to tie a noose around their neck by relying on cheap Russian gas. It was inevitable that Putin would use the ability to plunge Germany into darkness to exert influence, it was just a matter of when. Luckily the US blew up the pipeline so Germany couldn’t wobble and screwed over US consumers shipping vast quantities of gas across the Atlantic to keep the German lights on, and we in the UK did our part too (unloading US gas and shipping both the gas and electric generated by it to the continent).

Sure, all European countries should have invested in more renewables from a financial-stability and energy-security perspective as well as an environmental one. But the FF lobby is strong, doing nothing is easy, it often takes a crisis to force action that should have been taken long ago.

[Mart]

It's great to see (on the MSE website) a huge number of people asking for advice / looking to get PV. But with high demand, and a shrunken industry, it also means high prices.

Had the UK not implemented such anti PV and on-shore measures almost a decade ago, I'd guess at us having an additional 10GWp of PV, and 10GW of on shore win. between them that would be around 10% of our leccy needs. Such a waste.

Whilst I don't think new nuclear is worth the trouble going forward, the move in Germany to close plants early makes little sense. So long as they are safe, I don't see the point, as closing them early destroys their economical model.

So many mistakes, and looking backwards is easy, but these issues, like the gas pipelines from Russia, were obvious.

Still, great to see the acceleration now in RE across Europe, and the Polish HP adoption is mighty, just need to move their leccy off coal as fast as possible. So Putin has turbocharged the shift away from FF's ...... hopefully.

[Fintray]

Had the UK not implemented such anti PV and on-shore measures almost a decade ago, I'd guess at us having an additional 10GWp of PV, and 10GW of on shore win. between them that would be around 10% of our leccy needs. Such a waste.

Mart I think you need to amend that to England (mostly), as Scotland has been busy installing renewables at a fair rate:
From Scottish Renewables statistics "Scotland’s renewable electricity capacity has shown steady growth between 2009 and 2020 with the average annual capacity increase over 700MW since the end of 2009. In 2022, renewable capacity installed was up 1,621MW from 2021, the greatest increase in at least 15 years."

And it doesn't look like slowing down any time soon.

"There is significant additional capacity in development across Scotland, with projects either in planning or already consented totalling over 17GW. Capacity increases in the short term will come from onshore wind, with 5.46GW of capacity already consented and a further 5.78GW in planning. Offshore wind has 3.92GW already consented. There is also 958MW of solar projects at various stages of development and 317MW of wave and tidal projects either in planning or already consented."

[Mart]

Very true, Scotland is simply embarassing most of us, although Bristol seems to be in the news a lot for their pro RE policies.

I should have been more clear, and said UK Gov. I still don't understand why they made such negative moves ~2015, when things were going well, and the population as a whole seemed to be supportive of RE, insulation/energy improvements etc etc. Very strange.

Maybe it was all that Green Crap?

[dan_b]

The need for those additional Scot-Eng grid reinforcements (eastern bootstrap) grows ever stronger. I know the projects are happening, but it could do with happening now and not in 4-6 years time.

Had the UK not implemented such anti PV and on-shore measures almost a decade ago, I'd guess at us having an additional 10GWp of PV, and 10GW of on shore win. between them that would be around 10% of our leccy needs. Such a waste.

Mart I think you need to amend that to England (mostly), as Scotland has been busy installing renewables at a fair rate:
From Scottish Renewables statistics "Scotland’s renewable electricity capacity has shown steady growth between 2009 and 2020 with the average annual capacity increase over 700MW since the end of 2009. In 2022, renewable capacity installed was up 1,621MW from 2021, the greatest increase in at least 15 years."

And it doesn't look like slowing down any time soon.

"There is significant additional capacity in development across Scotland, with projects either in planning or already consented totalling over 17GW. Capacity increases in the short term will come from onshore wind, with 5.46GW of capacity already consented and a further 5.78GW in planning. Offshore wind has 3.92GW already consented. There is also 958MW of solar projects at various stages of development and 317MW of wave and tidal projects either in planning or already consented."

[dan_b]

I hope that was a joke?!
Let's not go down those conspiracy theories... Although Russia did accuse the Royal Navy of destroying the pipeline at one point!

Luckily the US blew up the pipeline

[Joeboy]

Had the UK not implemented such anti PV and on-shore measures almost a decade ago, I'd guess at us having an additional 10GWp of PV, and 10GW of on shore win. between them that would be around 10% of our leccy needs. Such a waste.

Mart I think you need to amend that to England (mostly), as Scotland has been busy installing renewables at a fair rate:
From Scottish Renewables statistics "Scotland’s renewable electricity capacity has shown steady growth between 2009 and 2020 with the average annual capacity increase over 700MW since the end of 2009. In 2022, renewable capacity installed was up 1,621MW from 2021, the greatest increase in at least 15 years."

And it doesn't look like slowing down any time soon.

"There is significant additional capacity in development across Scotland, with projects either in planning or already consented totalling over 17GW. Capacity increases in the short term will come from onshore wind, with 5.46GW of capacity already consented and a further 5.78GW in planning. Offshore wind has 3.92GW already consented. There is also 958MW of solar projects at various stages of development and 317MW of wave and tidal projects either in planning or already consented."

Indeed, time for the Southern sector to up its game significantly. They can start with Project 3

[Stinsy]

I hope that was a joke?!
Let's not go down those conspiracy theories... Although Russia did accuse the Royal Navy of destroying the pipeline at one point!

Luckily the US blew up the pipeline

Obviously I have no evidence. However Germany could've run back to Putin for cheap gas had the pipeline been operational. The US has the means, opportunity, and motive.