What's your source for the 24% figure for primary energy Tom? The numbers I can find from a quick scrounge for last year seem to show 10-12%

Posted By: fostertomLast year Germany got 24% of its energy from solar energy and wind.

That doesn't seem at all plausible to me. The second sentence that from the article that Steamy referenced says:

The share of electricity produced from renewable energy in Germany has increased from 6.3 percent of the national total in 2000 to about 25 percent in the first half of 2012.

Given that total energy use is probably some 6 to 10 times the electricity use that would have been a huge jump. Even with all electricity coming from renewables and with a substantial input from solar thermal I doubt that 24% of energy could come from solar and wind.

Regrettably too many ignorant and careless journalists equate percentages of electricity generation with percentages of energy use.

PS, sorry got distracted and took a while to post - cross posted with Seret and Tom's reply. The article Tom references actually says:

Germany has in the past decade embraced renewables big-time. The country last year got 24 percent of its power from solar and wind — more than any other major industrialized nation. On some sunny weekends, more than a million mini-solar power plants on roofs and land across the country deliver half Germany’s electricity needs. On stormy winter nights, thousands of wind turbines can achieve the same.

It's pretty obvious from the context that “power” here means electrical power, not all of either primary or final energy.

The jury is still out on Germany's big project. In the short term it's resulted in increased carbon emissions. It'll be interesting to see how much of a reduction they can pull off in the long-term compared to other nations not following such a drastic model for change. We should know by about the mid 2020s which of the projections for Germany are accurate.