How Many km2 of Solar Panels in Spain and how much battery backup would it take to power Germany

Abstract

Germany is responsible for about 2% of global annual CO2 emissions from energy. To match Germany’s electricity demand (or over 15% of EU’s electricity demand) solely from solar photovoltaic panels located in Spain, about 7% of Spain would have to be covered with solar panels (~35.000 km2). Spain is the best-situated country in Europe for solar power, better in fact than India or (South) East Asia. The required Spanish solar park (PV-Spain) will have a total installed capacity of 2.000 GWp or almost 3x the 2020 installed solar capacity worldwide of 715 GW. In addition, backup storage capacity totaling about 45 TWh would be required. To produce sufficient storage capacity from batteries using today’s leading technology would require the full output of 900 Tesla Gigafactories working at full capacity for one year, not counting the replacement of batteries every 20 years. For the entire European Union’s electricity demand, 6 times as much – about 40 % of Spain (~200.000 km2) – would be required, coupled with a battery capacity 6x higher. To keep the Solar Park functioning just for Germany, PV panels would need to be replaced every 15 years, translating to an annual silicon requirement for the panels reaching close to 10% of current global production capacity (~135% for one-time setup). The silver requirement for modern PV panels powering Germany would translate to 30% of the annual global silver production (~450% for one-time setup). For the EU, essentially the entire annual global silicon production and 3x the annual global silver production would be required for replacement only. There are currently not enough raw materials available for a battery backup. A 14-day battery storage solution for Germany would exceed the 2020 global battery production by a factor of 4 to 5x. To produce the required batteries for Germany alone (or over 15% of EU’s electricity demand) would require mining, transportation and processing of 0,4-0,8 billion tons of raw materials every year (7 to 13 billion tons for one-time setup), and 6x more for Europe. The raw materials required include lithium, copper, cobalt, nickel, graphite, rare earths & bauxite, coal, and iron ore for aluminum and steel. The 2020 global production of lithium, graphite anodes, cobalt or nickel would not nearly suffice by a multiple factor to produce the batteries for Germany alone.