"We no longer produce electricity with coal or nuclear! We just buy it from other countries and then browbeat them about environmental responsibility!" doesn't seem like a sustainable energy policy.
Germany is a net exporter of electricity. But Europe has a joint spot market for electricity, which is a good thing for all involved. No longer every country has to supply expensive peak power when surplus of neighbours can be used. And Switzerland and Austria are kind of European storage providers. A 1GW line to Norway went operational recently, which uses Norwegian water power for storage.
Oh, it is. Right now it exports all its coal and gas and wood burning production to neighbors; while only using 7.5% (= 8.94/(63.2+56)) of its installed wind and solar:
The great question is: how can Germany manage anything with no baseload from nuclear or coal? With current gas prices, it is going to get very expensive.
Fun fact: when electricity prices from Germany are negative (when there's big spike of intermittent electricity from renewable production) French grid operators strategically lower nuclear output and import this profitable energy.
Will Germany remain a net exporter without their nukes, and by getting rid of their nuclear capacity will they be forced to delay shutting down their coal plants?
