Have there been any technological advances regarding the wind and solar's capability of providing a base load? While Germany has been subsidizing wind and solar aggressively and even pushed back on the construction of coal plants in some areas, AFAIK nobody got a solution to tackle the inherent unreliability of green energy. The German government ought to have a plan for this, I hope?
I mean there's a lot to say about failures of German energy politics, but this isn't necessarily one of them.
One of the biggest developments in energy in the past years is that Germany started a hydrogen strategy. A major buildout of hydrogen electrolyseurs is planned in the upcoming decade (and given the support for this from basically all sides I expect this to be extended). In the end we'll likely have hydrogen gas plants that run in times where renewables are scarce.
Also there are projects to adapt industry electricity demand to production. The aluminium company Trimet, which is one of the largest electricity users in Germany, is already doing this.
The hydrogen strategy says very little about cars. The main focus is industry.
I think it doesn't outright exclude hydrogen cars (i.e. you could probably still build an electrolyseur with subsidies by the gov and ship the H2 to cars), but it's absolutely not the focus and I don't expect that to play any significant role.
The H2 strategy is a scam to give the oil and gas industry subsidies.
Hydrogen will never be feasible as a storage medium. There are countless arguments for that. In the end, it's simply a question of efficiency.
Germany has absolutely no strategy for lowpassing supply and demand. Instead the big energy providers bring the net to a "dangerous" situation and "save" the net by providing emergency power. Of course at horrendous prices. Which is payed by the tax payer (EEG law).
The energy prices are some of the highest in the world while not making any progress towards less polution
Grid scale batteries are set to become a thing in the next 5-7 years. A lot of different technologies are in the pilot plant phase, and most of them have a pathway to scalability.
Yes, continual improvement in battery technology. They aren't here yet, but solid state lithium-ion batteries are widely considered likely to be commercially available in the next few years.
