“To address this, the new government plans to rapidly shift its energy production to renewables. As nuclear power will be fully phased out this year, the coalition intends to provide 80% of energy through wind, photovoltaics and hydrogen imports by 2030. For this, they will expand and facilitate wind turbine construction, mandate photovoltaic panels on new commercial buildings and subsidise hydrogen technology R&D. In general, the coalition is open to most technologies (other than nuclear), and they allow for negative emissions tech.”
Is it 80% of energy (extremely ambitious, now at 15% decarbonized energy) or electricity?
The German government is one of the least technology-neutral governments on climate that I know, it is not only anti-nuclear (which you mention and rightly criticize), it is also limiting options in hydrogen (e.g. very focused on green hydrogen, with little support for blue hydrogen) and fairly lukewarm on CCS.
Hi, I contributed to that part, let me respond to both of your points:
You are right, the plan is to get 80% of electricity from renewable sources by 2030. But it’s complicated: At the same time, they expect to see an increase in electricity demand from 488 Twh in 2020 to 680-750 TWh per year, as more sectors are electrifying. Separately, they state the target to generate 50% of energy for heating from climate neutral sources by 2030. The goal is to also electrify transport. I can’t quickly give you an overall target percentage, that would require further research. The exact goals for 2030 and 2045 will be put into law this year.
Yes, they do plan to build up infrastructure for green hydrogen, but explicitly state they will remain technology-neutral for now, in order to quickly mature the hydrogen market.
Personally, I think it’s impossible to stay truly technology-neutral if you want to move that quickly. We can only build things that we know work today. And I think it makes sense to focus CCS efforts on sectors where there is no green alternative available yet, especially now while CCS is unreasonably expensive.
On 1, agree that this is complicated because of electrification, but even in 2030 80% of electricity are unlikely to translate into more than, say, 40% of energy, given a lot of energy-intensive processes are not easily electrifiable (heavy-duty transport, industry etc.). In any case, these are good goals. But more technology-inclusive peer countries (France, UK) are much more successful.
On 2, blue hydrogen (natural gas w CCS) is cheaper than green hydrogen for the next decade or so, so it is good if that is included.
I think the current coalition is better than some counterfactuals on climate (continued Grand Coalition, government led by the Greens), but overall still fairly disappointing.
Is it 80% of energy (extremely ambitious, now at 15% decarbonized energy) or electricity?
The German government is one of the least technology-neutral governments on climate that I know, it is not only anti-nuclear (which you mention and rightly criticize), it is also limiting options in hydrogen (e.g. very focused on green hydrogen, with little support for blue hydrogen) and fairly lukewarm on CCS.
Hi, I contributed to that part, let me respond to both of your points:
You are right, the plan is to get 80% of electricity from renewable sources by 2030. But it’s complicated: At the same time, they expect to see an increase in electricity demand from 488 Twh in 2020 to 680-750 TWh per year, as more sectors are electrifying. Separately, they state the target to generate 50% of energy for heating from climate neutral sources by 2030. The goal is to also electrify transport. I can’t quickly give you an overall target percentage, that would require further research. The exact goals for 2030 and 2045 will be put into law this year.
Yes, they do plan to build up infrastructure for green hydrogen, but explicitly state they will remain technology-neutral for now, in order to quickly mature the hydrogen market. Personally, I think it’s impossible to stay truly technology-neutral if you want to move that quickly. We can only build things that we know work today. And I think it makes sense to focus CCS efforts on sectors where there is no green alternative available yet, especially now while CCS is unreasonably expensive.
On 1, agree that this is complicated because of electrification, but even in 2030 80% of electricity are unlikely to translate into more than, say, 40% of energy, given a lot of energy-intensive processes are not easily electrifiable (heavy-duty transport, industry etc.). In any case, these are good goals. But more technology-inclusive peer countries (France, UK) are much more successful.
On 2, blue hydrogen (natural gas w CCS) is cheaper than green hydrogen for the next decade or so, so it is good if that is included.
I think the current coalition is better than some counterfactuals on climate (continued Grand Coalition, government led by the Greens), but overall still fairly disappointing.