text: The total electrical energy consumption by Germany during the first 25 days was approximately 33 terawatt-hrs. That translates to anaverage of 55 gigawatts of power every hour. If the wind turbines had operated at 100% capacity for the entire time, they still would have only supplied 60% of Germanys needed power. However, wind turbines rarely run near 100% rated capacity. Very often they produce only a small fraction of their rated capacity because the wind is highly variable and often does not blow very hard. On April 18 wind turbines in Germany produced their peak for the month: 17 gigawatts, but only for about 2 hours, before rapidly dropping off again to 8 GW at around midnight. On that day, all wind turbines together briefly reached 53% of their rated capacity. And that was their best day.