HTW Berlin: Only in the year 2150 completely regenerative energy
Published
The EEG is supposed to achieve the goals of the Paris climate summit. But at the rate of expansion to date, according to a study by Berlin's HTW, we will have to wait until 2150 for Germany to switch completely to renewable energies.
It is not news that the implementation of the climate turnaround will not proceed without effort. Based on the expansion progress of energy systems for renewable energies from the years 2000 to 2015, Volker Quaschning from the Berlin University of Applied Sciences has calculated in the so-called "sector coupling study".how long it would take for Germany to obtain 100 per cent of its energy from renewable sources. He arrives at the year 2150.
"Paris goals practically impossible"
"This makes it practically impossible to meet the Paris targets. Either the political leaders lack the necessary expertise or they do not intend to comply with the climate protection agreement at all," says Quaschning.
"We need to expand wind and solar energy three to six times faster than planned by the federal government," Volker Quaschning specified the results of his research group Solar Storage Systems at HTW Berlin: onshore wind power would have to be expanded by 6.3 gigawatts net per year instead of 2.8 GW gross, as envisaged in the EEG 2016. In the case of photovoltaics, as much as 15 GW would be required annually instead of the 2.5 GW envisaged in the EEG.
At www.greenpeace-energy.de/presse you will also find a fact sheet with key results of the HTW study and additional calculations by Greenpeace Energy on the need for long-term storage (wind gas / power to gas) in the context of sector coupling.
Press release from 20 June 2016 by Greenpeace Energy eG and Prof. Dr. Volker Quaschning, Renewable Energies Course, Berlin University of Applied Sciences
The Federal Cabinet today approved an update of the Resource Efficiency Programme. Germanwatch welcomes in principle the government's plan for resource efficiency, but says that the original draft of the Environment Ministry has been weakened considerably, especially with regard to human rights issues. "In many places we now only find lip service instead of a binding framework," regrets Cornelia Heydenreich, Team Leader Corporate Responsibility at Germanwatch. She emphasises: "Resource protection must go hand in hand with human rights protection".
In the September draft it had still said: "In all funding instruments of the raw materials strategy, state funding will be linked to binding compliance with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights [...]". Heydenreich: "That is the level of ambition we would have needed." Now it just says that eligibility for funding will be "assessed" in terms of human rights. The Resource Efficiency Programme merely refers to the parallel process of drafting a "National Action Plan on Business and Human Rights", which is to be brought to the Federal Cabinet in May. "Now it is up to the federal government to present such an ambitious National Action Plan in May, as promised. This must include, in particular, a law on human rights due diligence", demands Heydenreich.
Hardly any effective measures to prolong the use of products
Even in the measures to promote longer use of products, the federal government has taken promising approaches such as the creation of the EU legal prerequisite for a VAT concession in favour of resource-saving goods and services (e.g. repairs) out of its plan again. "The federal government's measures are too timid to really push for longer use of appliances," Heydenreich criticises.
On the other hand, it is to be welcomed that the German government is clearly committed to a demanding implementation of the EU regulation on conflict minerals. Heydenreich: "We call on the German government to use all possibilities to create a workable basis for this at EU level in the coming weeks. It must not be left to the companies to decide whether or not they finance bloody conflicts in the mining regions." Since the beginning of February, the EU Commission, the EU Parliament and the EU states have been negotiating a regulation on conflict minerals.
The extractive sector repeatedly causes particularly extensive human rights violations such as forced relocations, violent repression or even labour rights violations, including accidental deaths. According to a study commissioned by the former UN Special Representative on Business and Human Rights, John Ruggie, most of the business-related human rights allegations (28 per cent) concerned the extraction of raw materials.
Hamburg (8 July 2017). In Hamburg, 19 heads of government from the largest economies jointly reaffirmed their commitment to the swift implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement and rejected US President Trump's attempt to undermine the Paris Agreement.
According to the leaked results, the final declaration sets out the differences between the USA and the other 19 partners on climate protection. The 19 emphasise the irreversibility of the agreement, commit to rapid implementation and adopt a detailed climate and energy action plan. "The action plan is the most concrete result on climate policy that the G20 has ever produced," explains Christoph Bals, Political Director of Germanwatch. "It shows that it is no longer just about reaffirming the Paris Agreement, but about taking steps to implement it."
In the document, the 18 states plus the EU emphasise, among other things, the importance of long-term climate protection strategies, which are to be presented by 2020. They commit to aligning development aid and infrastructure investments with climate targets and specify steps that can be taken to encourage companies and investors to disclose their climate strategies. Bals: "We welcome the fact that the 19 partners are also recognising their responsibility for the poor and those particularly vulnerable to climate change and are launching a global partnership for financing and climate insurance solutions."
The US government's attempt to obtain a free pass for fossil fuel exports was curbed as the US accepted the UN's global Sustainable Development Goals as a framework for the energy transformation in the joint section of the G20. "This means they accept that the share of renewable energies will grow substantially by 2030 and that the pace of energy efficiency improvements will double," explains Bals.
Chancellor Merkel is criticised. She cannot "put the phase-out of coal, oil and gas on the international agenda by the middle of the century and refuse a plan at home for the rapid, socially acceptable phase-out of coal," emphasises Bals. "It cannot push ahead with plans to accelerate the international climate transition and at the same time have no strategy in Germany for the transport sector, which still has emissions as high today as they were in 1990."
On the one hand, there are 80 photos by Ludger Dederich from 2013, at which time the district was as good as completed. The urban integration of the "Turning Torso" by Santiago Calatrava can be seen well in some of the photos: https://siedlungen.eu/galerien/fotogalerie-2013-malmoe
The second photo gallery consists of 30 photos from an excursion with the Chair of Economics and Ecology of Housing (University of Karlsruhe), from 1999, when the Europaviertel was not yet completely finished and visitors were still able to look into some of the furnished model apartments, which were open to visitors, via the building exhibition: https://siedlungen.eu/galerien/fotogalerie-1999-malmoe
Net public electricity generation reached a record share of 59.7 per cent in 2023. The share of the load was 57.1 per cent. This is the result of an analysis presented today by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE. New records were set for wind and solar power in 2023. In contrast, generation from lignite (-27 per cent) and hard coal (-35 per cent) fell sharply. Photovoltaics stood out in the expansion of generation capacity: at around 14 gigawatts, the expansion was in double digits for the first time and significantly exceeded the German government's statutory climate protection target. Source of the data is the platform energy-charts.info
Photovoltaic systems generated approx. 59.9 TWh in 2023, of which 53.5 TWh was fed into the public grid and 6.4 TWh was used for self-consumption. At around 9 TWh, June 2023 was the month with the highest solar power generation ever. The maximum solar output of 40.1 GW was reached on 7 July at 13:15, which corresponded to a 68% share of electricity generation. In 2023, the expansion of photovoltaics significantly exceeded the German government's targets: instead of the planned 9 gigawatts, 13.2 gigawatts were installed by November; according to preliminary data, this will be more than 14 gigawatts by the end of 2023. This is a sharp increase compared to 2022 (7.44 GW). This means that PV expansion in Germany has reached double digits for the first time.
The Hydropower increased from 17.5 TWh in 2022 to 20.5 TWh. The installed capacity of 4.94 GW has hardly changed compared to previous years.
The Biomass at 42.3 TWh was at the level of 2022 (42.2 TWh). The installed capacity is 9 GW.
In total, the renewable energies approx. 260 TWh in 2023, around 7.2 per cent more than in the previous year (242 TWh). The share of renewable energy generated in Germany in the load, i.e. the electricity mix that actually comes out of the socket, was 57.1 per cent compared to 50.2 per cent in 2022. In addition to net public electricity generation, total net electricity generation also includes in-house generation by industry and commerce, which is mainly generated using gas. The share of renewable energies in total net electricity generation, including the power plants of "businesses in the manufacturing, mining and quarrying sectors", is around 54.9 per cent (2022: 48.2 per cent).
The Load in the electricity grid totalled 457 TWh, around 26 TWh less than in 2022. Due to the high electricity prices and higher temperatures, electricity was probably saved significantly. The increase in self-consumption of solar power is also reducing the load. The load includes the electricity consumption and grid losses, but not the pumped-storage power consumption and the self-consumption of conventional power plants.
Sharp decline in coal-fired power
After German coal-fired power plants ramped up their production in 2022 - due to the outage of French nuclear power plants, but also due to the distortions in the electricity market caused by the war in Ukraine - their share fell significantly in 2023. As a result, generation in November 2023 was 27 per cent below the same month in the previous year due to the drop in coal-fired electricity exports, but also because of the good wind conditions.
Overall, production from Lignite for public electricity consumption fell by around 27 per cent, from 105.9 to 77.5 TWh. This is in addition to 3.7 TWh for industrial own consumption. Gross electricity generation fell to the level of 1963.
Net production from Hard coal-fired power plants for public electricity consumption was 36.1 TWh (-35 per cent) and 0.7 TWh for industrial own consumption. It was 21.4 TWh lower than in 2022. Gross electricity generation fell to the level of 1955. Natural gas for electricity generation remained slightly below the previous year's level at 45.8 TWh for public electricity supply and 29.6 for industrial own consumption. Due to the shutdown of the last three nuclear power plants in Emsland, Neckarwestheim and Isar on 15 April 2023, the Nuclear power only contributed 6.72 TWh to electricity generation, which corresponds to a share of 1.5 per cent.
Battery storage systems are developing rapidly
The expansion of fluctuating renewable energies also increases the need for grid expansion and storage capacity. Battery storage systems, which are installed on a decentralised basis to buffer the generation of wind and solar power, are particularly suitable. The private household segment is showing strong growth, as is the case with photovoltaic systems. Overall, installed battery capacity almost doubled from 4.4 GW in 2022 to 7.6 GW in 2023, while storage capacity rose from 6.5 GWh to 11.2 GWh. The capacity of German pumped storage plants is around 6 GW.
Declining exports and exchange electricity prices
After an export surplus of 27.1 TWh was achieved in electricity trading in 2022, an import surplus of 11.7 TWh was recorded in 2023. This was due in particular to the lower electricity generation costs in neighbouring European countries in the summer and the high costs of CO2-certificates. The majority of imports came from Denmark (10.7 TWh), Norway (4.6 TWh) and Sweden (2.9 TWh). Germany exported electricity to Austria (5.8 TWh) and Luxembourg (3.6 TWh).
In winter, electricity exchange prices rose again and CO2-certificates became more favourable. This already led to a balance in November and, in conjunction with high wind power generation, to export surpluses in December. In contrast to its neighbouring countries (Austria, Switzerland, France), Germany also has sufficient power plant capacity in winter to produce electricity for export.
The average volume-weighted day-ahead price Exchange electricity price fell sharply to €92.29/MWh or 9.23 cents/kWh (2022: €230.57/MWh). This puts it back at the 2021 level.
A detailed presentation of the data on electricity generation, imports/exports, prices, installed capacity, emissions and climate data can be found on the Energy Charts Server: www.energy-charts.info/downloads/Stromerzeugung_2023.pdf
This first version of the annual evaluation takes into account all electricity generation data from the Leipzig electricity exchange EEX and the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E) up to and including 31 December 2023. The quarter-hourly values from the EEX were energetically corrected using the available monthly data from the Federal Statistical Office on electricity generation up to September 2023. For the remaining months, the correction factors were estimated on the basis of past monthly and annual data. The extrapolated values from October to December are subject to larger tolerances.
This is based on the data for the German Net electricity generation to the public electricity supply. It is the difference between gross electricity generation and the power plants' own consumption and is fed into the public grid. The electricity industry calculates with net figures, e.g. for electricity trading and grid utilisation, and only net electricity generation is traded on the electricity exchanges. It represents the electricity mix that actually comes out of the socket at home.
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The EEG is supposed to achieve the goals of the Paris climate summit. But at the rate of expansion to date, according to a study by Berlin's HTW, we will have to wait until 2150 for Germany to switch completely to renewable energies.
Hamburg (8 July 2017). In Hamburg, 19 heads of government from the largest economies jointly reaffirmed their commitment to the swift implementation of the Paris Climate Agreement and rejected US President Trump's attempt to undermine the Paris Agreement.
