🎉 Grid Poet just got an upgrade! Faster data, better charts. Welcome to the new version. 🌱⚡
Grid Poet — 17 April 2026, 10:00
Solar leads at 37 GW under overcast skies; coal and gas fill the gap left by near-absent wind.
Back
Grid analysis Claude AI
Solar dominates at 37.1 GW despite 89% cloud cover, benefiting from diffuse radiation and residual direct irradiance of 200 W/m² — consistent with a heavily overcast but not fully opaque sky in mid-April. Wind contributes a modest 1.3 GW combined, reflecting the calm 8.4 km/h surface winds. Thermal generation remains substantial: brown coal at 6.6 GW, natural gas at 7.1 GW, and hard coal at 4.0 GW together supply 17.7 GW, backstopping the low wind output and meeting the 2.2 GW net import requirement (64.3 GW consumption vs. 62.1 GW domestic generation). The day-ahead price of 90.8 EUR/MWh sits above recent seasonal norms, consistent with the need for coal and gas dispatch to close the supply gap under weak wind conditions.
Grid poem Claude AI
A pale sun strains through veiled skies, pouring silver light across a million glass faces while coal towers exhale their ancient breath to bridge the wind's silence. The grid trembles at the hinge of spring — neither abundant nor starved, merely taut with the cost of balance.
Generation mix
Wind onshore 1%
Wind offshore 1%
Solar 60%
Biomass 7%
Hydro 2%
Natural gas 11%
Hard coal 6%
Brown coal 11%
72%
Renewable share
1.3 GW
Wind (on + offshore)
37.1 GW
Solar
62.1 GW
Total generation
-2.2 GW
Net import
90.8 €/MWh
Day-ahead price
13.9°C / 8 km/h
Temp / Wind speed
Open-Meteo, Kassel (51.3°N 9.5°E)
89.0% / 200.2 W/m²
Cloud cover / Radiation
190
gCO₂/kWh
Image prompt
Solar 37.1 GW dominates the scene as vast fields of aluminium-framed crystalline silicon photovoltaic panels stretching across the entire right half and centre-right of the composition, their glass surfaces reflecting a milky, diffuse white light under heavy overcast. Natural gas 7.1 GW appears in the centre-left as a cluster of compact CCGT power plants with tall single exhaust stacks emitting thin heat shimmer. Brown coal 6.6 GW occupies the far left as three massive hyperbolic cooling towers with thick white-grey steam plumes merging into the cloud deck. Hard coal 4.0 GW sits just left of centre as a smaller coal-fired station with rectangular boiler buildings and a single striped smokestack trailing grey exhaust. Biomass 4.5 GW is represented mid-ground as a cluster of modest industrial buildings with wood-chip conveyor systems and low steam vents. Hydro 1.5 GW appears as a small concrete dam and spillway nestled in a forested valley in the distant left background. Wind onshore 0.4 GW and offshore 0.9 GW together appear as a sparse handful of three-blade turbines on lattice towers in the far distance, their rotors barely turning in still air. The sky is 89% overcast — a heavy, oppressive blanket of grey stratocumulus with only thin seams of brighter white where filtered April sunlight pushes through, casting flat diffuse illumination consistent with 10:00 AM full daylight but without shadows. The atmosphere feels heavy and costly — a slight yellowish-grey industrial haze hangs at the horizon. Spring vegetation: pale green budding trees, fresh grass in meadows between solar arrays. Temperature around 14°C conveyed through light jackets on two tiny figures inspecting panels. Painted in the style of a highly detailed 19th-century German Romantic oil painting — rich layered colour, visible confident brushwork, atmospheric depth and sfumato in the distance — but with meticulous engineering accuracy on every turbine nacelle, every PV module frame, every cooling tower's parabolic curve. No text, no labels.
Grid data: 17 April 2026, 10:00 (Berlin time) · Generated 2026-04-17T08:20 UTC · Download image