Germany’s Energiewende fails to meet targets – study

The energy transition in Germany does not achieve most of its goals, and its progress has slowed down over the last few years, a study conducted by the consultancy Prognos and commissioned by the Bavarian Industry Association (vbw) has found. Improvements in energy efficiency “clearly fall behind” targets, Prognos says in a press release. The country’s energy-related CO₂ emissions have been stagnant since 2014, and have exceeded the target levels for seven years in a row, Prognos says. Meanwhile, Germany’s security of energy supply remains high, the national grid was expanded without additional delays last year, and renewables expansion has been progressing at a far greater pace than previously envisaged, bringing about new challenges for energy infrastructure, the press release says.
In a separate press release, vbw head Alfred Gaffal said that “the Energiewende got stuck”. By 2025, the project’s costs are expected to reach 520 billion euros, and the price of electricity is projected to increase, Gaffal argued. The head of the industry lobby group said that Germany’s failure to meet its emissions reduction targets showed that the country must not tighten its reduction goals, as it had “arbitrarily” done in its Climate Action Plan 2050. Gaffal said that the technological and economic feasibility of the plan’s targets was not properly assessed, and these targets were not aligned with the relevant European standards either. “We need a European energy market with common rules”, Gaffal said, adding that climate policy should not “overburden the economy and the citizens with green dreams”.

Find Prognos’s press release in German here, the study in German here, and vbw’s press release in German here.

Find background in the CLEW article Germany’s energy use and emissions likely to rise yet again in 2017.