Friday, July 4, 2014

Good morning,

There is an institutional resistance to green technology. With over a hundred years of infrastructure built around fossil fuels (and the trillions of dollars worldwide that comes from it), it is not surprising that change comes slowly and reluctantly, but it can happen.

And it is happening. Take a look at Germany. Imagine what could happen in the United States if the government provided incentives to home-owners instead of throwing away hundreds of millions of dollars on failed "green" businesses.

Thanks for reading,

Your Living Green editor

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"German solar demonstrated just what it is capable of in the first two weeks of June," said Tobias Rothacher, expert for renewable energies at Germany Trade & Invest, the country's economic development agency.

Analysis from the Fraunhofer ISE research institute showed solar panels in Germany generated a record 24.24 GW of electricity between 1pm and 2pm on Friday, June 6th.

And on Monday June 9th, which was a national holiday, solar power production peaked at 23.1 GW, which equaled 50.6 percent of total electricity demand - setting another milestone.

The week was unusually hot with highs of 37C and Rothacher put the record down to the warm weather and the fact it was a public holiday.

But he added: "I think we could break a new record every two to three months now. We are installing more and more PVs [solar panels]."

The success of Germany's solar production lies with encouraging people to install them on their roof tops rather than building huge solar farms. Rothacher said 90 percent of solar panels in Germany were on individuals' roofs.

He added that solar power production had increased by 34 percent in the first five months of the year compared to last year thanks to the better weather.