Editorial March

At the end of last year, Germany was one of the driving forces behind the agreement that was reached at the Climate Change Conference in Paris. As a result, the average temperature increase is to be limited to 2 degrees Celsius. Thus, it is only logical that in the amendment to the German renewable energies act renewable energies are to ensure an ambitious 45% share in the power supply by 2025.

Naive newspaper readers could interpret the discussion on eco power reform in Berlin in this way. However, unfortunately the situation is completely different. The share of eco power in Germany today is already 33% and with continuous development it could easily be increased to 50 to 60 percent by 2025. Wanting to increase the share of eco power by 12% to 45% in ten years is by no means ambitious. For the industry it would mean that many of the existing production and installation capacities for wind or solar power systems would not even come close to being used to their full extent.

Besides the electricity sector, heating supply and mobility also play an important part in the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. However, in these two fields considerably less progress has been made in comparison to the energy sector. In the heating industry, emissions are only falling very slowly because the large stock of buildings is only slowly being redeveloped. Ever since biodiesel stopped being supported and the addition of bioethanol to petrol was reduced, the share of renewable energies in the traffic sector is actually in decline.

In this respect, the amendment to the renewable energies act with the 45% cap for eco power after Paris is a completely unexpected U-turn by the German Federal Government, especially since it has been proven in several analyses that this target will not reduce greenhouse gases by 40% before 2020 nor will it increase the share of renewable energies in final energy consumption to 18%. The Federal Government made a legally binding pledge to the EU regarding both points. Germany needs an electricity transition that continues to be successful and ambitious so that the generated clean electricity can also be used in the heating and transport transition. The current direction would not only be politically imprudent, it could also hardly be explained to the multitude of international observers and to investors in the energy transition!