Given all the solar farms we passed, and the number of houses with solar panels on the roofs, this didn't surprise me. There were FIELDS of solar panels. Row after row of them.
"German solar power plants produced a world record 22 gigawatts of electricity per hour — equal to 20 nuclear power stations at full capacity — through the midday hours on Friday and Saturday, the head of a renewable energy think tank said. The German government decided to abandon nuclear power after the Fukushima nuclear disaster last year, closing eight plants immediately and shutting down the remaining nine by 2022. ... The record-breaking amount of solar power shows one of the world's leading industrial nations was able to meet a third of its electricity needs on a work day, Friday, and nearly half on Saturday when factories and offices were closed."
It's a little hard to see in the photo above, but the roof of the house on the left (looks gray while the other roofs look reddish) is covered in solar panels.
Solar isn't the only clean energy Germany is producing. Everywhere we went we could see wind turbines. It would be nice to see more of the world turn to renewable energy sources.