First, if demand is not there, installed capacity isn't fully utilized. Since production costs of existing renewable installations is lower than carbon-based plants, a lull in demand will automatically increase the renewable percentage, that's neither good nor bad. But in fact, installed capacity is rising: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/bild/installierte-leistung-zu..., so no, the record is not only due to lower production.
Second, until 2022, renewables were actively hindered by the various Merkel cabinets. The roadmap going forward is way more aggressive, but of course planning takes some time. So a "rapid build-up" is still a multi-year thing.
I did not claim it is only to lower production - it's mainly due to it. Which is exactly my point.
Renewables were not actively hindered, Germany just decided to stop paying 30-50 cent per kwh in subsidies because it's stupid. Also, this is a seperate discussion.
It's not a separate discussion, in fact it's at the core of the current problems.
The original idea was to get rid of nuclear and coal and use gas as an intermediate step till renewables would be competitive. Then Merkel happened and all of a sudden, renewables were neutered and complacency set in: gas would be "good enough", and Russia a reliable supplier.
Please tell me again how that has to do with my root post on this thread.
but - okay, if you want to play this game - that has nothing to do with this thread: the renewables were built faster under Merkel than under the current coalition. Germany has the (one of) the highest electricity prices on this planet. The german electricity - after putting in $500bn+ - is still 5x dirtier than French electricity. We have not yet even started to build storage, which we will need a lot of. Finland, Sweden, France, Belgium and others are successfully combining nuclear power with RE. Germany is alone on this stupid quest and paying dearly for it.
