Germany’s renewable ambitions

Manfred Fischedick addressed the Irish Renewable Energy Summit on the Energiewende: an ambitious but “feasible” transition.

Energy analyst Manfred Fischedick is “absolutely convinced that we are talking about a feasible undertaking” when discussing Germany’s drive to maximise renewable energy. The Energiewende (energy transition) demonstrates, in his view, that fighting climate change reducing nuclear power “can be two sides of the same coin.”

Fischedick is Vice President of the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy and was speaking at this year’s Irish Renewable Energy Summit.

Market deployment in Germany is driven by the need to tackle climate change, reduce import dependency, create economic development (including jobs), and diversify the energy mix.

Renewables, of all types, accounted for 12 per cent of German energy in 2012. The renewable shares of electricity, heat and transport stood at 23 per cent, 10 per cent and 5.5 per cent respectively. The electricity figure had moved up to an estimated 25 per cent by the end of 2013 but success also depends on making progress on renewable heat and transport.

Looking at the “dynamic” upward trend, he explained that in 1990, this was “mainly based on hydro-power.” Biomass, wind and solar now dominate the share of renewables.

“Germany was able to increase the contribution, in terms of megawatt hours, by renewables by a factor of seven in around about two decades,” Fischedick explained.

Since 2010, it has overshot the contribution of nuclear energy. Photovoltaic power has experienced the highest increase over the last decade with more than 7,000MW added in the three years from 2010. The increase for wind is smaller but nevertheless represents a “huge dynamic” e.g. an additional 2,740 MW in 2013.

The Renewable Energy Act 2000 has been the most important policy driver and the sector is now a significant market. Germany invested nearly €20 billion in renewable installations in 2012 and turnover for operation and maintenance stood at €15 billion. The number of patent applications is also increasing, primarily for wind and solar energy. Renewables have also been a “substantial job motor” with sectoral employment growing from 160,000 to 381,000 between 2004 and 2011.

“Our hope, of course, is that this dynamic development will continue for the next decade,” Fischedick added. “We have, at the moment, an in-depth debate about how to further shape the policy supporting system but nevertheless we have still very ambitious long-term targets for renewables in Germany and for the energy system in general.”

Energiewende is built on two general targets: decrease greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80 per cent between 1990 and 2050 and phase out nuclear energy by 2022. The process is bottom-up as well as top-down.

Forty per cent of investors in renewable technologies are private individuals (often farmers) and investments from utilities have only started to pick up in recent years.

The social acceptance challenge “may be the most important and maybe the most complex one for the next decades.” At present, surveys suggest that more than 90 per cent of the German population supports the further development of renewables but NIMBY “is an important issue in Germany” as well as in Ireland.

Average household electricity prices have been increasing in Germany over the last 15 years. The renewables support policy now accounts for a quarter of that price and this is prompting growing complaints.

A balance needs to be struck between deployment and the burden on customers, and the Government is seeking to “reduce the velocity” of further deployment over the next decade.