They’re using about 27% renewables so far in 2014 next to the U.S.’s approximately 13%, but last Sunday Germany hit a mark of almost 75% renewable energy for the day. That’s a new record and the records keep coming.

Observers say the records will keep coming as Germany continues its Energiewende, or energy transformation, which aims to power the country almost entirely on renewable sources by 2050.

That’s Germany.

They don’t have a sun baked Southwest.

They don’t have a sun baked anything!

The unprecedented growth of solar PV in particular has been fueled in large part by policies that incentivize clean energy. Germany’s simple feed-in tariff (FIT) policy, which pays renewable energy producers a set amount for the electricity they produce under long-term contracts, has driven the solar power boom. But as installations continued to outpace government targets, Germany announced last year that it would begin scaling back its feed-in tariff.

It’s all about policy – but that’s influenced by politics and makes it difficult.