Why dwell on the past? Currently per capita electricity consumption is higher in China than in Germany (6.5 MWh vs 6 MWh).
However, it is true that even in light of this current situation China is building out solar a bit faster (on a per capita basis, even if adjusted for consumption) than Germany. In Germany it‘s about 1 GW added each month, which adjusted for population and energy consumption is about a factor of 1.5 compared to Chinas 25 GW per month.
Wind is lagging behind in Germany but, to be honest, looking at numbers from 2024 compared to China it’s about the same factor 1.5 difference when adjusted for population (3 GW compared to 87 GW).
Germany should be and could be as fast as China – but there aren’t humongous differences between the two countries.
How fast has Germany's PV capacity expanded in recent years? In another subthread I wanted some estimate of how many hectares in Germany had PV on them, but the pages I visisted on the subject were outdated.
Germany has a space problem. There aren't large swaths of land available to put solar panels on. Added to that you have to realize just how far north Germany is, and consequently how... Bad solar is because of that.
Seriously, dropping down the same amount of panels gets you significantly less electricity in Germany then where China is building them, much closer to the equator.
Overall, Germany is in a shit place for renewable energy
For many years I have been writing about how bad Germany is for solar panels because of, mostly, how far north it is. Specifically, the capacity factor for utility-scale solar in Germany has historically been about 10%, which is mostly because of the unfavorable latitude and cloudiness. You can see this quantified at https://solargis.com/resources/free-maps-and-gis-data?locali.... The capacity factor for utility-scale solar in China has actually also historically been about 10%, and I have no idea why that is. You are certainly correct that it ought to be much better, because China gets so much more sun. You can see that quantified at https://solargis.com/resources/free-maps-and-gis-data?locali....
However, Germany does not have a space problem. Germany is 357'114km² with "photovoltaic electricity potential" of about 3.0kWh/kWp/day according to Solargis (see above link), which would be a capacity factor of 12.5%. I'm not quite sure how they calculate that, but multiplying by the country's area, the solar constant of 1000W/m², and a fudge factor of 0.8, it works out to something on the order of 30–40 terawatts, electric. That's roughly 50% to 100% more than the entire world's marketed energy consumption, which is about 18 terawatts, about a third of it electric. Germany produced 488.5 TWh in 02024 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Germany) which is 55.73GW.
Therefore, roughly 0.2% of Germany's land area would suffice to produce all of its current electrical consumption with solar energy, about 700km². This would also require something like 450 gigawatts (peak) of solar panels, which would cost about €45 billion at today's prices, roughly 4 days of Germany's GDP.
It is absolutely true that, if you put those same solar panels in the Mojave Desert, mounted with single-axis trackers, they would produce two or three times as much power. (California's average utility-scale solar capacity factor was over 29% last I checked.) So, yes, solar is much more expensive in Germany. But if you check out https://www.solarserver.de/photovoltaik-preis-pv-modul-preis... you will see that, in March 02023, solar modules cost three times as much as they do now. So solar generation in California then cost what solar generation in Germany costs now. (Except that, because of Biden's anti-renewable-energy tariffs, actual California prices were and are much higher than you would expect from Solarserver.)
To put this somewhat in perspective ("why is Germany not installing 700km² of PV panels right now?"):
Grid operators project costs of around €250 billion [1] (within 2045) for grid expansion alone, and NIMBYism is a big problem everywhere in Germany.
Battery storage to allow going full PV (1 week) would be at least twice that [2].
There is also plenty of "anti-green" sentiment in Germany generally and the current government coalition is in a somewhat precarious position, discouraging long-term investments like that.
