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"In 2012, Germany once again exported more electricity than it imported," reports Spiegel Online. It exported 66.6 TWh (terawatt hours) compared to the 43.8 TWh which were imported, according to figures published by the Federal Statistics Office.
This 22.8 TWh surplus, worth some €1.4bn, corresponds "to the annual production of two large nuclear power plants. [...] No other European country exported as much electricity as Germany," continues Stern Online.
These figures are unexpected given that Germany began to withdraw from nuclear power in 2011. Eight of Germany's 17 plants were shut down after the nuclear disaster at Fukushima in Japan in March 2011.
Yet, due to the rise in electricity supplied by solar and wind energy, whose share in the energy mix rose by 23 per cent in 2012, the energy surplus has quadrupled and the country earned €1.4bn in energy export sales.
Many experts had feared an electricity shortage "but the rise in exports shows that there is more electricity than is needed and that available capacity, including the maximum energy available in case of added demand, is sufficient," Der Speigel notes. German electricity is mostly exported to the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland.
A conversation with investigative reporters Stefano Valentino and Giorgio Michalopoulos, who have dissected the dark underbelly of green finance for Voxeurop and won several awards for their work.
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