Berlin “We need a European industrial electricity price,” said Economics and Climate Minister Robert Habeck on Monday at the Handelsblatt Energy Summit in Berlin. The energy price crisis cannot be solved without a transnational solution. “That It has to happen that way, and I think it’s realistic,” emphasized the Green politician. The minister declared 2023 to be a crucial year for energy policy.
Habeck announced tenders for the construction of new gas-fired power plants and details on the planning of the hydrogen network and also did not rule out the storage of carbon dioxide (carbon capture and storage, or CCS for short) in Germany for the future. After last year the focus was almost exclusively on security of supply, this year the focus should once again be on the energy transition.
There is only one problem: the ambitious goal of 80 percent renewable electricity by 2030 cannot be achieved given the current level of electricity consumption. According to current figures from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Research (ISE), Germany achieved 49 percent last year.
The expansion of renewable energies is progressing much too slowly. The planned installed capacity of 115 gigawatts of onshore wind power by the end of the decade would require us to add the missing 66 gigawatts between 2022 and 2029. Germany needed more than 20 years for the first 50 gigawatts.
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Almost 30,000 wind turbines are now turning on meadows, fields and in the North and Baltic Seas. After the expansion had hardly progressed in recent years, more wind turbines were installed again for the first time in 2022. According to the Wind Agency, 25 percent and thus almost 300 wind turbines more than in the previous year have been added. The figures are exclusively available to the Handelsblatt.
Too few wind turbines in Germany
And yet that is clearly not enough, complains expert Jürgen Quentin from the Fachagentur Wind on Land: “In order for us to return to the climate protection path, more than twice as much wind energy capacity would have to be installed this year and next as in 2022,” he said Handelsblatt. Growth in permits is also far from sufficient. “The urgently needed increase in the number of permits did not materialize at the federal level,” says Quentin.
Almost 30,000 wind turbines are now turning on meadows, fields and in the North and Baltic Seas.
(Photo: dpa)
In addition, Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia account for almost half of all newly approved wind turbines last year. Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Saarland and Bavaria bring up the rear. They either approved no wind turbines at all or, as in Bavaria, just eight of a total of more than 4,000.
>> Read here: Significantly more wind turbines were built in Europe in 2022
Habeck is nevertheless confident: “80 percent renewables by 2030 can be achieved. That’s doable,” he emphasized on Monday in Berlin. Germany must now show that, as an industrialized country with all its demands for security of supply and prosperity, it can quickly decarbonize itself. “We will be judged on that,” said the minister.
Experts warn that the phase-out of nuclear power and coal could result in a power shortage given the slow pace of expansion of renewables. Instead of calculating with increasing demand for more and more electric cars, heat pumps and electricity-powered applications, the federal government under Economics Minister Peter Altmaier calculated the forecasts for electricity consumption for years. Shortly before leaving office, the CDU politician corrected himself.
The infrastructure that has been built up for liquefied natural gas (LNG) from countries such as the USA, Qatar and others must now provide a secure basis for the gas-fired power plants, says Habeck.
(Photo: dpa)
And after the most recent amendment to the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) under Altmaier’s successor Habeck, the current government is now even anticipating consumption of 750 terawatt hours in 2030. That is at the upper end of the range forecast by studies.
The situation in the power grid is likely to remain tense
The situation in the power grid is likely to be at least tense in the next few years. Also because gas imports from Russia will be canceled for the foreseeable future. “In order to reduce gas consumption in the electricity sector, we have brought almost six gigawatts back on the grid from the coal reserve or have not shut down power plant blocks. That was necessary, but of course it’s a sin in terms of climate policy,” Habeck said on Monday.
The infrastructure that has been established for liquefied natural gas (LNG) from countries such as the USA, Qatar and others must now provide a secure basis for the gas-fired power plants, “so we can reduce lignite-fired power generation again in the short term”. The new LNG terminals have already replaced 14 billion cubic meters of natural gas.
Just last weekend, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) opened the second landing site for liquefied natural gas in Lubmin in northern Germany after Wilhelmshaven. The third terminal in Brunsbüttel is to follow in just a few days, Habeck announced in Berlin.
For the current winter, the Economics Minister is cautiously giving the all-clear: “It’s mid-January and the storage facilities are over 90 percent full. The higher they are filled at the end of winter, the better.”
Nevertheless, he continued to call on citizens to save energy. Now it must be a question of getting away from the additional coal power as quickly as possible.
In 2024 he doesn’t want to have to say again that fossil power plants will stay connected to the grid longer. Then you really failed completely in the structural crisis, said the minister with a view to Lützerath.
More: Germany must build six wind turbines a day by the end of 2029