🎉 Grid Poet just got an upgrade! Faster data, better charts. Welcome to the new version. 🌱⚡
Grid Poet — 8 May 2026, 17:00
Solar leads at 20.9 GW despite full overcast; brown coal and net imports cover a wide residual load gap.
Back
Grid analysis Claude AI
At 17:00 on a fully overcast May evening, solar generation still delivers 20.9 GW despite 100% cloud cover and only 19 W/m² direct radiation — consistent with strong diffuse irradiance at this time of year, though output is well below clear-sky potential. Wind contributes a modest 6.1 GW combined (onshore 4.9, offshore 1.2), reflecting the light 6.6 km/h surface winds. Thermal plants are running at substantial levels: brown coal at 7.1 GW, hard coal at 3.1 GW, and gas at 3.3 GW, providing the firm capacity needed to cover a 11.7 GW gap between domestic generation (46.1 GW) and consumption (57.8 GW), with the remaining shortfall met by net imports of approximately 11.7 GW. The day-ahead price of 109.5 EUR/MWh is elevated but consistent with high residual load conditions requiring both significant coal dispatch and cross-border procurement.
Grid poem Claude AI
Beneath a leaden sky the turbines barely stir, while ancient coal fires roar to fill what fading light cannot confer. The grid strains at its seams, importing power from afar, a nation caught between its green ambitions and the stubborn dark of an overcast hour.
Generation mix
Wind onshore 11%
Wind offshore 3%
Solar 45%
Biomass 9%
Hydro 3%
Natural gas 7%
Hard coal 7%
Brown coal 15%
71%
Renewable share
6.0 GW
Wind (on + offshore)
20.9 GW
Solar
46.1 GW
Total generation
-11.7 GW
Net import
109.5 €/MWh
Day-ahead price
12.3°C / 7 km/h
Temp / Wind speed
Open-Meteo, Kassel (51.3°N 9.5°E)
100.0% / 19.0 W/m²
Cloud cover / Radiation
212
gCO₂/kWh
Image prompt
Solar 20.9 GW dominates the centre-right as vast fields of aluminium-framed crystalline silicon PV panels stretching across flat farmland, their surfaces reflecting only dull grey light under total overcast; brown coal 7.1 GW occupies the left quarter as a cluster of massive hyperbolic cooling towers emitting thick white steam plumes, with conveyor belts feeding lignite into adjacent boiler houses; wind onshore 4.9 GW appears as a row of three-blade turbines with cylindrical nacelles on lattice and tubular towers on low rolling hills behind the solar fields, their blades barely turning in the still air; natural gas 3.3 GW is rendered as two compact CCGT units with tall single exhaust stacks and slim vapour trails, positioned centre-left between coal and solar; hard coal 3.1 GW shows a smaller coal plant with rectangular boiler building and a single squat cooling tower, just to the right of the lignite station; biomass 4.2 GW appears as a wood-chip-fed facility with rounded storage silos and a modest smokestack near the right edge; hydro 1.6 GW is a small run-of-river weir visible along a green-banked stream in the far right foreground; wind offshore 1.2 GW is suggested by distant turbines on the hazy horizon line. TIME OF DAY: 17:00 dusk in May — the sky is a heavy uniform blanket of grey-white stratus with no blue visible, the lower western horizon shows a faint smudge of warm orange-amber glow where the sun is sinking behind the cloud deck, upper sky already darkening toward slate blue. The atmosphere feels oppressive and heavy, reflecting the high electricity price — thick, low clouds press down on the landscape. Temperature 12°C: spring vegetation is lush green but muted under the flat light, grass and wildflowers in meadows around the solar arrays, deciduous trees in fresh leaf. Light wind: smoke and steam rise nearly vertically. Highly detailed oil painting in the tradition of 19th-century German Romantic landscape painters — Caspar David Friedrich's brooding atmosphere combined with Adolph Menzel's industrial precision. Rich earth tones, visible impasto brushwork in the clouds, atmospheric aerial perspective fading the offshore turbines into haze, meticulous engineering detail on every turbine nacelle, every PV module frame, every cooling tower's parabolic curve. No text, no labels.
Grid data: 8 May 2026, 17:00 (Berlin time) · Generated 2026-05-08T15:20 UTC · Download image