Energy Factoid: Dunkelflaute is the German word for why wind and solar power are failing in Europe

Closing nuclear plants when wind power is projected to fail could be considered 'dumm'

Dunkelflaute, which translates literally as dark lull or dark doldrums, is the German word for the doldrums of winter when there is little wind and low light, usually in November, December, and January. During these periods, wind turbines and solar panels produce little or no energy. Germany has tried various kinds of battery storage to get through the annual dunkelflaute, but the only thing that has really bailed out their power grid is nuclear, and burning more coal and natural gas

Germany and Northern Europe have been experiencing a variation of dunkelflaute, called “wind droughts,” for the last few years, with wind speeds falling 15% or more in many regions. This has been a gradual trend since 1978. The projections for wind drought continue to get worse. Even the IPCC is forecasting slowing winds for the coming decades, saying average annual wind speeds could drop by up to 10% by 2100.

Jim Robbins at GreenBiz, writing for the World Economic Forum (WEF), looked at the issue:

Climate change itself could be behind the changes, as wind speeds are determined by global temperature differences which are getting smaller as the Arctic warms. Drops in wind speed have obvious consequences for wind power, given the EU gets about 15% of its electricity from wind, U.S. wind farms provide nearly 10% of its utility-scale electricity generation, and ambitions for increased wind capacity are in everyone’s strategy.

Expected declines in wind speed have obvious consequences for wind power. Yet, recent U.S. federal legislation, the comically misnamed the Inflation Reduction Act, has ambitious goals of increasing wind and solar power generation by throwing trillions of dollars at it. The U.S. may soon learn about dunkelflaute.

With wind speeds expected to decline in coming years, what does Germany do? It shuts down its remaining nuclear power plants. Some Germans may say this is dumm. Hopefully, the U.S. will learn from the experiences of Germany before it is too late.

My friend, Robert Bryce, posted his thoughts about Germany closing their nuclear power generating plants in his “About a Minute” video.