Oh really?
"Two weeks ago, the Czech government decided to end all subsidies for new renewable energy projects at the end of this year. "The reason for this law amendment is the rising financial burden for electricity consumers," Prime Minister Jiri Rusnok said. "It threatens the competitiveness of our industry and raises consumers' uncertainty about power prices." In recent years, almost all EU member states also have begun the process of rolling back and cutting green subsidies.
Spain is a particularly cautionary tale. By failing to control the cost of guaranteed subsidies, the country has been saddled with €126bn of obligations to renewable-energy investors.
Now that the Spanish government has dramatically curtailed these subsidies, even retrospectively, more than 50,000 solar entrepreneurs face financial disaster and bankruptcy.
Germany, however, is the nation that has pushed the renewables agenda furthest and is struggling most with the unintended damage of the green energy shift, its so-called Energiewende.
Germany's renewable energy levy, which subsidises green energy production, rose from €14bn to €20bn in just one year as a result of the fierce expansion of wind and solar power projects. Since the introduction of the levy in 2000, the electricity bill of German consumers has doubled.
Germany has the most expensive electricity in Europe, with an average price of 26.8 euro cents (40c) a kilowatt hour. No wonder Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned that the rapid expansion of green energy programs is weakening Germany's competitive advantage in the global economy.
More than half of the world's solar panels are installed in Germany. On June 6, Germany's solar power production touched a new record of 23.4 gigawatts, meeting almost 40 per cent of the country's entire peak electricity demand. But to understand that this record is quite meaningless, consider the grid's narrow escape last winter. For many weeks in December and January, Germany's 1.1 million solar power systems generated almost no electricity. During much of those overcast winter months, solar panels more or less stopped generating electricity. To prevent blackouts, grid operators had to import nuclear energy from France and the Czech Republic and power up an old oil-fired power plant in Austria.
In fact, German CO2 emissions have been rising for two years in a row as coal is experiencing a renaissance.
The EU also is quietly rolling back its renewable agenda, which EU leaders now recognise has been raising energy prices across the Continent. At their summit in Brussels in May, leaders indicated that they intended to prioritise the issue of affordable energy over cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
The EU summit signalled Europe intended to restore its declining competitiveness by supporting the development of cheap energy, including shale gas, while cutting green energy subsidies."
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/new...its-green-future/story-e6frg8y6-1226694405337
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