🎉 Grid Poet just got an upgrade! Faster data, better charts. Welcome to the new version. 🌱⚡
Grid Poet — 18 April 2026, 02:00
Coal and gas dominate overnight generation at 2 AM; reported solar of 48.5 GW is a clear data anomaly.
Back
Grid analysis Claude AI
At 02:00 CEST, total generation of 76.2 GW against consumption of 41.4 GW yields a net export position of 34.8 GW — an extraordinarily large figure that warrants scrutiny, particularly given that 48.5 GW of solar generation at 2 AM with 96% cloud cover and zero direct radiation is physically impossible and almost certainly reflects a data error. Excluding the anomalous solar figure, thermal generation is elevated: brown coal at 7.8 GW, natural gas at 7.5 GW, and hard coal at 4.3 GW together provide 19.6 GW, consistent with a low-wind overnight dispatch pattern where wind onshore and offshore contribute only 2.1 GW combined. Biomass at 4.2 GW and hydro at 1.8 GW supply steady baseload. The day-ahead price of 109.7 EUR/MWh is notably high for a nighttime hour, suggesting either tight conditions on the thermal merit order, high fuel and carbon costs, or interconnector constraints limiting the value of the apparent oversupply — further evidence that the reported solar and net export figures are erroneous.
Grid poem Claude AI
In the dead of a German spring night, cooling towers breathe their white hymns into a starless sky, while phantom sunlight haunts the ledger like a ghost no meter ever saw. Coal and gas hold vigil where the wind will not, feeding a nation that sleeps beneath a price it cannot feel.
Generation mix
Wind onshore 1%
Wind offshore 2%
Solar 64%
Biomass 6%
Hydro 2%
Natural gas 10%
Hard coal 6%
Brown coal 10%
74%
Renewable share
2.1 GW
Wind (on + offshore)
48.5 GW
Solar
76.2 GW
Total generation
+34.8 GW
Net export
109.7 €/MWh
Day-ahead price
11.5°C / 2 km/h
Temp / Wind speed
Open-Meteo, Kassel (51.3°N 9.5°E)
96.0% / 0.0 W/m²
Cloud cover / Radiation
174
gCO₂/kWh
Image prompt
Brown coal 7.8 GW dominates the left third of the scene as a cluster of massive hyperbolic cooling towers with thick white steam plumes rising into the black sky; natural gas 7.5 GW fills the center-left as a row of compact CCGT power blocks with tall single exhaust stacks emitting faint heat shimmer; hard coal 4.3 GW appears center-right as a smaller coal plant with bunker conveyors and a single squat cooling tower; biomass 4.2 GW is rendered as an industrial facility with wood-chip silos and a modest smokestack glowing warmly; hydro 1.8 GW appears as a concrete dam with dark water spilling over a floodlit weir at far right; wind onshore 0.9 GW is a pair of distant barely-turning three-blade turbines on a ridge, and wind offshore 1.2 GW is suggested by faint red aviation warning lights on the far horizon. Time is 2 AM — the sky is completely black, deep navy-black with no twilight, no moon visible, heavy 96% overcast erasing all stars. The only illumination comes from sodium-orange streetlights along an access road, harsh white industrial floodlights on the power plants, and the warm orange glow of furnace light escaping from coal plant openings. NO solar panels anywhere — no sunshine, no PV arrays. The atmosphere is heavy and oppressive, with low clouds pressing down, lit from below in sickly orange by the industrial complex. Spring vegetation — fresh green grass and budding deciduous trees — is barely visible in the sodium light at the scene's edges. Temperature is mild at 11.5°C, so no frost, a faint mist drifts at ground level. Air is nearly still, no wind motion in trees or flags. Highly detailed oil painting in the tradition of 19th-century German Romantic landscape painters — rich chiaroscuro, visible impasto brushwork, atmospheric depth recalling Caspar David Friedrich's nocturnes but applied to an industrial Rhineland scene. Meticulous engineering detail on every structure: lattice transmission towers with sagging conductors, turbine nacelles with three-blade rotors, aluminium-framed infrastructure. No text, no labels.
Grid data: 18 April 2026, 02:00 (Berlin time) · Generated 2026-04-18T00:20 UTC · Download image