Grid Poet — 20 August 2026, 20:00
Evening solar collapse drives heavy coal, gas, and wind dispatch plus 21.6 GW net imports at a 200.6 EUR/MWh price.
Back
← older newer →
Grid analysis Claude AI
At 20:00 on a warm August evening, German domestic generation totals 31.9 GW against consumption of 53.5 GW, requiring approximately 21.6 GW of net imports. Solar has effectively ceased at 0.2 GW, removing roughly 15–20 GW of daytime capacity and leaving thermal plants and wind to carry the domestic share. Brown coal leads generation at 6.6 GW, followed by natural gas at 5.8 GW, hard coal at 4.0 GW, and a combined 9.9 GW of onshore and offshore wind. The day-ahead price of 200.6 EUR/MWh reflects the tight supply-demand balance during this evening ramp period, with dispatchable thermal generation near full output and heavy reliance on interconnector flows.
Grid poem Claude AI
The sun has fled and left the grid to hunger in the dark, where coal fires roar and turbine blades carve shadows through the August night. Across the borders, rivers of electrons pour inward like tides summoned by a price that will not relent.
Generation mix
Wind onshore 27%
Wind offshore 4%
Solar 1%
Biomass 13%
Hydro 4%
Natural gas 18%
Hard coal 13%
Brown coal 21%
48%
Renewable share
9.9 GW
Wind (on + offshore)
0.2 GW
Solar
31.9 GW
Total generation
21.6 GW
Net import
200.6 EUR/MWh
Day-ahead price
21.0°C / 14 km/h
Temp / Wind speed
Open-Meteo, Kassel (51.3°N 9.5°E) · surface estimate from 100 m wind
80.0% / 33.0 W/m²
Cloud cover / Radiation
353
gCO₂/kWh
Image prompt
Brown coal 6.6 GW dominates the left quarter of the scene as three massive hyperbolic cooling towers with thick white-grey steam plumes rising into a black night sky, lit from below by orange sodium lamps illuminating the lignite conveyor belts and boiler houses. Wind onshore 8.7 GW spans the entire background as dozens of three-blade turbines on lattice and tubular steel towers, their red aviation warning lights blinking against the darkness, rotors turning at moderate speed in a 13.7 km/h breeze. Natural gas 5.8 GW occupies the right-centre as two compact CCGT plants with tall single exhaust stacks emitting thin heat shimmer, their metal facades reflecting amber industrial lighting. Hard coal 4.0 GW sits beside the brown coal as a smaller coal-fired station with a single large smokestack and rectangular boiler building, coal piles visible under floodlights. Biomass 4.1 GW appears as a mid-sized wood-chip-fed power plant with a domed storage silo and modest chimney, warm interior light glowing from high windows. Wind offshore 1.2 GW is suggested in the far distance as a faint line of blinking red lights on the dark horizon suggesting North Sea turbines. Hydro 1.2 GW is rendered as a small run-of-river station at a weir in the foreground, water catching reflections of nearby streetlamps. Solar 0.2 GW is essentially absent — no panels are visible, only a dark empty field where panels might stand during daytime. The sky is completely black with no twilight glow, heavy 80% cloud cover obscuring stars, the atmosphere oppressive and dense reflecting the extreme 200.6 EUR/MWh price. The landscape is a gently rolling German river valley with late-summer green deciduous trees barely visible in the artificial light, warm 21°C air suggested by lush foliage. Style: highly detailed oil painting in the tradition of 19th-century German Romantic landscape painters — rich dark palette of deep navy, amber, burnt sienna, and charcoal grey with visible impasto brushwork, atmospheric chiaroscuro depth, meticulous engineering accuracy on every turbine nacelle, cooling tower shell, and CCGT stack. No text, no labels.
Grid data: 20 August 2026, 20:00 (Berlin time) · Generated 2026-08-20T18:20 UTC · Download image