Green Energy Costs in Germany Crushing

It really doesn't matter that 'green energy' imposes increased costs across the board for everyone. What matters is that we feel good about ourselves when we are forced to live lives that are subservient to others that know what's best.

Impact of Renewable Energy Policies in Germany
Source: Kenneth P. Green, "Green Energy: Don't Envy Germany," The American, April 23, 2011

In a study of the impacts of Germany's aggressive promotion of wind and solar power, Manuel Frondel and colleagues noted that the German feed-in law required utilities buy solar power at 62 cents per kilowatt-hour, far above the normal cost of conventional electricity, which was between 3 and 10 cents.

Feed-in subsidies for wind power, they observed, were 300 percent higher than conventional electricity costs. But rather than bringing economic benefits in terms of lower cost energy and a proliferation of green energy jobs, implementing wind and solar power raised household energy rates by 7.5 percent, says Kenneth P. Green, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

German renewable energy policy, and in particular the adopted feed-in tariff scheme, has failed to harness the market incentives needed to ensure a viable and cost-effective introduction of renewable energies into the country's energy portfolio.

In the case of photovoltaics, Germany's subsidization regime has reached a level that by far exceeds average wages, with per-worker subsidies as high as €175,000 ($254,000).

To the contrary, Germany's principal mechanism of supporting renewable technologies through feed-in tariffs imposes high costs without any of the alleged positive impacts on emissions reductions, employment, energy security or technological innovation.
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