Despite increased share of green electricity: government continues to put the brakes on energy transition
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The current share of green electricity should not hide the fact that this federal government is blocking the energy transition at every turn. Take wind energy, for example: the government keeps delaying the additional tenders. Therefore, a massive slump is imminent in the next two years. This means job losses in a key industry of the future and a stagnating development in the share of wind power.
Take solar power, for example: no sooner has the solar power market picked up again after years of lull than the German government wants to massively cut the market premium for many installations. This emerges from the current draft bill for the Energy Collection Act. In doing so, the government would stall the positive development again. The cap of 52 gigawatts for solar power is also to remain in place.
Even if the government only wants to achieve its own targets, which are far too low, it must double the current production of green electricity by 2030. The course must be set for this now. But instead of finally accelerating the expansion of green electricity, the black-red coalition wants to continue to slow down, cap and delay. Not to mention transport and buildings, where the energy transition is not making any progress at all. In this way, the government continues to torpedo the urgently needed climate protection.
PM BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN in the German Bundestag of 2.11.2018
A new "Export Initiative for Environmental Technologies" of the Federal Ministry for the Environment is to support the foreign business of the German environmental industry and thus promote the development of environmental infrastructure. Interested companies and organisations can apply until the end of April. In total, the BMUB five million euros available this year.
Federal Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks: "Germany is the world export champion in environmental protection. We want to maintain this position. In the meantime, other countries have also recognised that environmental protection goods are a key market of the future. With the export initiative, we want to support our companies in developing their Know-How continue to successfully market internationally while driving sustainable development."
Applications are open to institutions from Germany that are working on the development of environmental infrastructure abroad. Funding is available, for example, for projects in the field of circular economy, sustainable water management, sustainable, efficient construction, mobility or sustainable and nature-friendly regional infrastructure development. The initiative will also specifically provide funding for urbanisation partnerships and international "Smart City-projects" will be used. The initiative is also intended to help accelerate the application of global environmental standards abroad.
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.
Mayor Michael Grötsch; State Environment Minister Franz Untersteller; Karl-heinz Frings, Managing Director of GBG; Martin in der Beek, Technical Managing Director of rnv; Gregor Kiefer, Head of Construction Management, GBG. Photo: City of Mannheim / Markus Proßwitz
The city is to become cleaner and quieter: Under the heading "blue_village_Franklin", important future topics such as new mobility, energy efficiency, climate-optimised living or smart grids are being tested with the conversion of the former military area FRANKLIN. The SQUARE project, two model houses renovated according to the latest energy standards, and the electromobile bus lines 66 and 67 are part of this master plan. Franz Untersteller MdL, State Minister for the Environment, Climate and Energy Management, visited the two model projects in the new urban quarter on Tuesday, 4 August, as part of his summer tour "Environmental Future".
"With SQUARE, the city of Mannheim and the Mannheim housing association are showing a way to design climate- and energy-optimised living in existing buildings," said the Environment Minister during his visit. "It is impressive to see what has been implemented here in terms of building refurbishment, electromobility and smart grids. And it will be exciting to evaluate the results of this model project and make them usable for other projects."
Lord Mayor Dr. Peter Kurz explains: "With Franklin, an ecological urban quarter for over 9,000 people is being created that will set new standards. Our goal is to consume as little energy as possible throughout the district, to generate as much renewable energy locally as possible and to cause as few emissions as possible. In this context, the SQUARE model project presents two interesting approaches to solutions."
Back in 2014, the model project for energy-efficient building refurbishment SQUARE (smart quarter and urban area reducing emissions) was awarded a prize in the "Klimaschutz mit System" (Climate Protection with a System) competition run by the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of the Environment. The SQUARE project application was prepared by the City of Mannheim's Economic Development Department in cooperation with the Climate Protection Control Centre. Thanks to the award, SQUARE was able to be included in the ERDF funding programme at the time and supported with three million euros. "SQUARE stands for one of the most ambitious projects in the field of GreenTech and climate protection in the city of Mannheim in the past decade. It is one of the pioneering projects developed from the "Blue City Mannheim" strategy concept of the Economic Development Department. The green tech innovation strategy from 2013 is still highly topical and sets the course for climate-neutral mobility and smart grids," emphasizes Mayor Michael Grötsch.
GBG - Mannheimer Wohnungsbaugesellschaft finally successfully implemented the model project on FRANKLIN. The first tenants moved in at the end of 2019. The two almost identical buildings were renovated according to different standards, one building according to the EnEV standard (SQUARE now), the second building with passive house elements according to an EnerPhIT standard (SQUARE next). Technologies such as smart grids, seasonal heat storage using ice storage and intelligent mobility concepts are being tested. The total of 48 rental apartments are spread across 3- to 5-room apartments between 84 and 109 sqm. "We are very excited about the insights we will gain through SQUARE. According to the calculations and simulations, we can achieve a CO2 saving of more than 50 percent in the comparison of the two buildings. In order to be able to save even more CO2, we are relying on the generation of regenerative energies. The ENEV building therefore received a photovoltaic system, the EnerPhIT building a solar thermal system," explains Karl-Heinz Frings, Managing Director of GBG.
"This is where the city of the future with the energy system of the future is being created," explains Bernhard Schumacher, head of the Smart Cities business unit at Mannheim-based energy company MVV. To this end, MVV is using smart technologies and the new possibilities of digitalisation on Franklin and is linking the various sectors intelligently and efficiently with each other - "not only to bring electricity, water, heat and mobility to the district, but also to make the new district the beacon of a necessary energy turnaround at the same time". MVV is also demonstrating what is already possible today in terms of electromobility on Franklin. In addition to environmentally friendly car-sharing solutions, such as FRANKLIN mobil, publicly accessible charging points are being set up, which will be networked with the energy management system and made more flexible. At the same time, the heating sector also plays an indispensable role. MVV has therefore built an innovative low-temperature heating grid here, which also enables the efficient integration of renewable energies.
Another item on the agenda of the visit is the three electric buses of the type E-Citaro, which have been in operation in Franklin on line 67 since April 2019. One of the buses was also funded under SQUARE. The environmentally friendly buses run every 20 minutes between the conversion areas on Franklin and the Käfertal Bahnhof stop. This will give people who already live, work or go to school in Franklin a direct connection to the rnv public transport network. "We are delighted to have EvoBus as a strong partner for this forward-looking project right on the spot," says Martin in der Beek, Technical Managing Director of rnv. "Over the past year, we have gained a lot of valuable knowledge in the operation of conventional electric buses and at the same time proved that the technology can stand up to the rigours of everyday public transport." In the future, however, other forms of propulsion will also be examined, he added. "We are currently looking intensively at the use of hydrogen buses in public transport and will soon be testing this technology at the rnv," reveals in der Beek. "Traveling by public transport is already more environmentally friendly per se than traveling by car, but we want to do even more for climate protection and therefore also convert our vehicle fleet to emission-free drives as far as possible."
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