>Here in Germany we add half of this years world's photovoltaic solar panel production. Much of that is installed by small consumers, houses, farms, factories. This gets us away from the huge expensive centralized energy production. Panel by panel.

Your solar capacity only exists because of extreme government intervention. It's far more expensive than what you call "expensive" centralized electricity.

The most recent feed-in tariffs are 31.9 - 43.0 Euro cents per kWh (2009 installations), fixed for 20 years. Older installations are given subsidies: the original rates were 45.7 - 54.7 Euro cents/kWh (2004 installations).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_incentives_for_photov...

http://www.solarbuzz.com/FastFactsGermany.htm

For comparison, wholesale spot prices for utilities in Germany averaged 3.9 Euro cents/kWh for baseload in 2009 (through 3Q), and 5.0 Euro cents/kWh for peaking power. Residential retail rates (as of 2007 -- slightly dated) are about 14 Euro cents/kWh before taxes.

http://rwecom.online-report.eu/2009/ir/3/reviewofoperations/...

http://www.cbs.nl/en-GB/menu/themas/industrie-energie/public...

>A new nuclear power plant has not been built in he last twenty years and is not planned.

Your government banned them.

>The new reactors that are under construction in Finland and France are both much more expensive than planned and are coming years late.

Yes, they've had enormous cost overruns and are years late. And German solar power is an order of magnitude worse.

We're talking about Olkiluoto #3 (Finland) and Flamanville #3 (France), the two new reactors being built in Europe. Both EPRs of 1,600 MW(electric) capacity (net). Olkiluoto had an inital cost estimate of €3 billion, and is overrun by 50% and counting (so €4.5 billion so far). Flamanville' overrun (to date) is smaller, from €3.3 B to €4.0 billion (20%). (These are the most recent numbers I can find; correct me if you find better ones.)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/business/energy-environmen...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=a...

Crucially, nuclear reactors actually achieve their nameplate capacity -- they run at full load almost all the time. For example, look at these reactors' older siblings: Flamanville #2 has a lifetime load factor of 70.53%, and Olkiluoto #2, 93.55% (IAEA data). And this is typical. A 1,600 MWe EPR can conservatively be expected to average 1,100 MWe or more.

http://www.iaea.org/cgi-bin/db.page.pl/pris.ophis.htm?countr...

http://www.iaea.org/cgi-bin/db.page.pl/pris.ophis.htm?countr...

To date, all of German solar panels (i) add up to just one of these EPRs at best, (ii) have earmarked at the minimum €70 billion in subsidies between them, over their next 20 years. To be fair the present value of that €70 billion is a bit less (it's future money). But it's eye-opening.

According to solar industry sources, there are some 11,500 MW of solar PV capacity in Germany (9.8 GW through 2009, and another 1.7 GW through May 2010).

http://www.pv-tech.org/news/_a/germanys_solar_capa567_by_3gw...

The actual amount of electricity is only a tenth of that. If you look at PV power plants in Germany, their load factor is only around 11-13%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany#Largest_...

Which you could independently predict by looking at a solar insolation map; for instance 1,000 kWh/year from a 1 kW capacity panel is a load factor of 11.4%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EU-Glob_opta_presentation....

So 11,500 MW of German PV capacity should generate only 11 billion kWh/year, or 1,250 MW agerage. All of it adds up to about one EPR. (To anyone actually reading this, I recommend Google Calculator for these kinds of calculations, type-checked with physical units like 'kWh').

And a lower bound for the committed subsidy is, using the lowest possible rate of 31.9 Euro cents/kWh, €70 billion:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%2811%2C500+MW+*+0....

(The "PV tech" article gives a higher figure of €100 billion; I'm not sure what their assumptions are.)