German solar capacity rises by over 3 GW in first half of 2010: grid agency

http://www.platts.com/RSSFeedDetailedNews.aspx?xmlpath=RSSFeed/HeadlineNews/ElectricPower/8946360.xml

Germany's federal grid agency (BNetzA) said Tuesday that solar capacity
rose by an estimated 3 GW in the first half of the year as solar panel
operators rushed to register their units to benefit from higher feed-in
tariffs.

According to a statement, newly installed solar capacity rose by 1.7 GW
between January and May based on the analysis of the 85,000 applications
received for solar units during that period.

However, the agency received a further 50,000 applications alone in June,
which should bring the total newly installed solar capacity above 3 GW for the
first half, the statement said.

"Applications were flooding in during the last weeks of June as many
operators wanted to secure higher feed-in tariffs, which were reduced
considerably from July 1 2010," the president of the federal grid agency
Matthias Kurth said.

<not much more>

why can't we?

They have it, we don't.

We still think we can be "energy independent" by "drill baby drill". Germany doesn't have that delusion.

3 gigawatts sounds impressive until you realize two things. One, that's nameplate capacity, and the installations actually generate roughly 15% of that. Two, even 3 GW is a tiny, microscopic fraction of the energy the US demands. Roughly speaking, the US has an average constant energy demand of 3,300 gigawatts. So if we built solar systems at TEN TIMES the rate Germany is, we might be energy independent in 150 years or so.