Germany set a new world record in July 2013 when it produced 5.1 terawatt-hours (that’s 5.1 trillion watts) of electricity, far ahead of the U.S. record of 0.764 TWh for May 2013. This report coincided with the somewhat less nuanced news that renewables had supplied 74% of Germany’s energy during one recent period of peak production. In fact, as my colleague Ralph Torrie pointed out, the 74% figure referred to electricity only, not fuels, electricity is less than 20% of Germany’s energy use, and renewables actually supplied 27% of electricity across the first quarter of this year. That’s still an impressive number, but we have a very long way to go to complete the low-carbon transition—not just for electricity, but for all our uses of fossil fuels. (h/t EcoWatch for forwarding the 5.1 TWh report)
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