Draft law to support car sharing / Many start-ups are green
Handelsblatt
The government has put the finishing touches on draft legislation to support Germany’s booming car-sharing market, business daily Handelsblatt has learned. “The goal is to make it possible for the states to set up special parking places and free parking for car-share vehicles,” Transportation Minister Alexander Dobrindt told the business daily. To use reserved parking places, companies would have to show their vehicles comply with limits on CO2 emissions, reports Handelsblatt. Germany’s car-sharing market has grown rapidly from 190,000 registered users in 2011 to more than a million by 2015, according to the report. Carmaker BMW offers car-sharing service DriveNow and rival Daimler car2go.
Read the report in English here.
For background, read CLEW’s dossier The energy transition and Germany’s transport sector.
Die Welt
Despite the lacklustre success of the buyers’ premium for e-cars in Germany, delivery times for electric vehicles remain long, reports Thomas Imhof in Die Welt. Buyers of the global best-seller Nissan Leaf had to wait up to six months until recently, the Renault Zoe takes five months to arrive, and a BMW i3 around three months. Car industry expert Stefan Bratzel, from the Center of Automotive Management, told the author the long delivery times were one of the factors slowing demand. He added that manufacturers tied e-car production much tighter to orders than was the case with conventional models.
Read the article in German here.
dpa
The federal government plans to ease the burden that high electricity grid fees present to eastern German federal states, said Brandenburg’s state secretary Dietmar Woidke, according to news agency dpa. The federal government aims to align the transmission grid fees on a national level, Woidke said. To date, the grid fees that power consumers pay as part of their electricity bill are higher in states such as Brandenburg, which have large shares of renewable energies.
Read the article in German here.
Hamburger Abendblatt
The Green Party’s plan for phasing out coal in Germany makes sense and is overdue, writes energy expert Claudia Kemfert, from the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in a commentary for Hamburger Abendblatt. “We have a massive power oversupply, we drown in power and sell it at a loss at the exchange. Unnecessary coal power plants require unnecessary powerlines, crash the power market and endanger the climate goals.” Kemfert argues that Germany’s large share of coal power damages the credibility of the Energiewende abroad, increases costs and is an obstacle for the energy transition’s economic opportunities and jobs in renewable industries.
Read the opinion piece in German here.
Green Budget Germany (FÖS)
The economic ministry’s proposal to counteract low energy prices by raising energy taxes in its Green Paper on energy efficiency is suitable, according to a paper by environmental NGO Green Budget Germany (FÖS). Low energy prices harm the Energiewende and a flexible tax is worth discussing to compensate volatile energy prices on the commodity markets, according to FÖS.
Read the paper in German here.
For more on the green paper, read the article Lagging efficiency to get top priority in Germany’s Energiewende.
Windkraft-Journal
Green politician Hans-Josef Fell criticises the federal government for proposing in its recently published "Concept for Civil Defence” only “old, unfit concepts” such as military and police protection to deal with consequences of attacks or catastrophes like extensive power outages. In an opinion piece in Windkraft-Journal, Fell emphasises the benefits of citizens’ energy projects. He argues that supporting a decentralised electricity supply through renewable energies, especially for critical infrastructure like hospitals or water supply, would be a “better way to make German society crisis-proof”.
Read the opinion piece in German here.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
State support for combined heat and power with a capacity of 1-50 megawatts that are used for self-consumption will be abolished, writes Andreas Mihm in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. This would hit energy-intensive industries especially hard because companies that self-consumed their energy would be exempt from support in the future, argues Mihm. But smaller or larger facilities would continue to be eligible for state support. The federal cabinet wants to decide on the relevant reform in September, writes Mihm.
Find out more about CHP in the CLEW factsheet Combined heat and power - an Energiewende cornerstone?
Borderstep Institute / WirtschaftsWoche
In 2014, 17.3 percent of German start-ups contributed to an environment and climate-protective economy with their products and services, according to the Green Economy Start-up Monitor 2015 by Borderstep Institute, writes WirtschaftsWoche. 86 percent of all start-ups in the energy sector are dedicated to a green economy, more than in any other business sector. Stats for 2015 will be presented in the spring of 2017.
Read the Borderstep Institute press release in German here and the article in WirtschaftsWoche in German here.
