Anne Katrin Bohle has been State Secretary for Construction at the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Housing since March 2019.
Until the German EU-The "Leipzig Charter" is to be further developed into the "Leipzig Charter 2.0" for the EU Council Presidency in 2020. The "Leipzig Charter", which is little known even among experts, invokes the values of "citizens' co-determination and self-determination, calls for social integration, the creation and use of public space, a strengthening of city centres and a mix of uses". And the "idea of the "European City" explicitly opposes one-sided and monotonous urban development. Against exclusion and isolation of individual city districts, against the ruthless enforcement of individual interests."
Growth of renewable energies varies greatly from country to country / Greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union rose slightly last year / Agora Energiewende and Sandbag present report on EU energy transition
Brussels, 30 January 2018. In 2017, for the first time, more electricity was produced from wind, solar and biomass in the European Union than from hard coal and lignite combined. Electricity generation from these renewables grew by 12 percent compared to the previous year. Since 2010, the share of electricity from wind, solar and biomass - the "new" renewables introduced since 2000 - has more than doubled in the EU. However, as hydropower production declined sharply in 2017, the share of all renewables in electricity generation grew only slightly from the previous year, rising from 29.8 to 30.0 percent. This is shown in a joint analysis by two think tanks - Agora Energiewende from Germany and Sandbag from the UK. The authors of the study compiled and evaluated public data from numerous sources.
However, the share of renewable energies is developing very differently from country to country. The United Kingdom and Germany, for example, have contributed more than half of the expansion of renewable energies in the past three years - wind energy in particular plays a major role here. In Germany, 30 percent of electricity was generated from wind, solar and biomass last year, compared with 28 percent in the UK. The strongest percentage growth was recorded in Denmark: In 2017, 74 percent of the electricity generated there came from wind, solar and biomass, an increase of seven percentage points within one year. The strong growth in these countries contrasts with very low growth in many other EU countries: Slovenia, Bulgaria, France, Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary have all seen very low growth since 2010. Other countries still recorded significant growth at the beginning of the decade, but only stagnation in the past three years. These include Spain, Italy, Portugal, Belgium and Greece. The exceptions are Croatia and Romania, where the share of electricity from wind, solar and biomass has increased from low single digits to 18 (Croatia) and 16 percent (Romania) since 2011. Six countries produced less than ten percent of their electricity from wind, solar and biomass in 2017: Slovenia (4%), Bulgaria (7%), France (8%), Slovakia (8%), Czech Republic (8%) and Hungary (10%).
Fossil energy also showed an uneven development. Electricity generation from hard coal declined by 7 percent due to higher wind power production. This development will continue in the Netherlands, Italy and Portugal due to political decisions. However, electricity generation from lignite increased slightly across the EU in 2017, and there is no sign yet of a shift away from lignite-fired generation.
Despite the increase in wind and solar energy, CO2-emissions from the European power sector did not fall in 2017, remaining at 1,019 million tonnes. A combination of three factors led to this: First, electricity generation from hydropower fell to a Europe-wide low, mainly due to low precipitation and snowfall, which largely eroded gains in other renewables. Second, nuclear power plants in France and Germany supplied less electricity than in previous years. And third, electricity consumption in the European Union rose for the third year in a row, by 0.7 percent in 2017. Since CO2-emissions outside the power sector increased, emissions within the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) are expected to rise again for the first time since 2010, the authors of the study forecast. They assume that in 2017, within the ETS, 1,756 million tonnes of CO2 were emitted, six million metric tons more than in the previous year. Emissions from the use of oil and gas outside the ETS also grew. Sandbag and Agora Energiewende therefore assume an increase in total greenhouse gas emissions in the EU of around 1 percent.
"In recent years, the development of renewable energies in Europe has been strongly influenced by the success story of wind energy in the UK and Germany. However, only if all countries in Europe commit themselves equally will it be possible to achieve a 35 percent share of renewable energies in energy consumption by 2030. Photovoltaics can make a much greater contribution to this than has been the case to date. Measured against its potential and its now very low costs, it plays far too small a role," says Matthias Buck, Head of European Energy Policy at Agora Energiewende.
"With electricity consumption rising for the third year in a row, countries need to step up their energy efficiency efforts," adds Sandbag analyst Dave Jones. "To make a difference on emissions, European Union countries can't avoid closing coal-fired power plants. According to our calculations, 258 coal-fired power plants in the EU accounted for 38 percent of all emissions in the ETS last year. This is equivalent to 15 percent of total greenhouse gas emissions." In 2017, the Netherlands, Italy and Portugal announced plans to phase out coal-fired power generation in the coming years. "This is great. But we need a fast and complete coal phase-out in Europe. It would be absurd to still be charging electric cars with electricity from coal in the 2030s," Jones says.
To reach the EU's 2030 renewables target, the EU will have to make much greater efforts in the coming years than in the past. "Especially in Southern and Central Europe, but also in Spain and Greece, renewable energies can play a much greater role. Because the climatic conditions there are very favourable for renewables," says Buck. Agora Energiewende has therefore recently proposed a guarantee programme to significantly reduce the financing costs for renewable energy projects in these countries.
The analysis "The European Power Sector in 2017" was presented today in Brussels. It is available in English on the website www.agora-energiewende.de available for download free of charge. A comprehensive data set with all figures used in the publication is available as an Excel file.
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.
More and more people are answering the question "How do we want to live?" with "Together instead of alone." Community living has become very popular in recent years, both among young and older people. The forms of new residential, house and housing communities are diverse: from self-sufficient eco-villages and multi-generational housing projects to so-called "beguine projects" for women.
The ARL - Academy for Spatial Research and Planning took up this topic in the 1/2016 issue of "ARL News" under the title "Housing projects - from niche to trend?". Micha Fedrowitz contributed an article on communal living in Germany.
The largest passive house development in Europe is currently being built on Mühlenweg in Vienna. The total area of the site Aspanggründe "Eurogate covers approx. 22 hectares. Six different architectural firms are planning a total of 740 flats. When completed, around 7,000 jobs will be created there. By the end of 2008, around 25% of the planned social housing in Vienna will probably be built to passive house standards." oekonews.at
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