E-car subsidies delayed / Deutsche Post goes electric
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
“Buyer’s premium for e-cars still cannot be applied for“
Customers still cannot apply for a buyer’s premium for new e-cars after the federal cabinet decided to introduce it one month ago, writes Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). According to a spokesperson of the economy ministry, the EU Commission must first give its consent to the subsidy plans. It also remains to be seen if the Commission agrees to backdate the regulation to 18 May – the date of the cabinet decision – writes FAZ. “The preparations for the application process are in full swing,” writes the Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (BAFA) on its website. Until then, applications could not be accepted.
Read the CLEW article Federal government decides on 4,000 euro buyer's premium for e-cars.
Read the CLEW dossier on the energy transition and Germany’s transport sector.
Wirtschaftswoche/dpa
“Deutsche Post: Entire vehicle fleet switches to e-cars”
German mail service Deutsche Post DHL plans to replace its entire fleet with electric vehicles, reports news agency dpa. “It’s not a crazy vision but reality that we can only drive with electric vehicles in the mid-term,” company CEO Frank Appel said, without giving further details on the plans. The current Deutsche Post fleet consists of 92,000 vehicles, according to the article.
Deutsche Post announced in April it would start production of an electric delivery vehicle this year.
Read the article in German here.
tageszeitung
“Government does away with stinky cars”
From 2030 onwards, only emission-free new cars should be registered in Germany, said Jochen Flasbarth, state secretary in the environment ministry, according to tageszeitung. This is necessary “if we are to take the Paris Climate Agreement seriously – and we are”, said Flasbarth. This was also the opinion in the top level of the economy ministry. State secretary Rainer Baake had said before that Germany should stop registering new conventional cars by 2030 if the sector was going to be emission free by 2050.
Read the article in German here.
Handelsblatt
“Attack on carmakers”
The new think tank Agora Verkehrswende*, which aims to pave the way for a decarbonisation of the transport sector and will launch officially on 1 July, could become a threat to German carmakers, who earn their money with conventional engines and not with e-cars, write Daniel Delhaes and Klaus Stratmann in business daily Handelsblatt. The Agora Verkehrswende's sister project of energy think tank Agora Energiewende* has proven to be very influential when it comes to policies in the power sector, according to the authors. The head of the Agora Verkehrswende, Christian Hochfeld, told the authors: “Our goal is that the next government puts the decarbonisation of the transport sector on track." The article says that Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche advised the industry to "invest massively" into e-car technology. He also told the newspaperit was "certain" e-cars would be produced in Germany in the future.
Read the article in German (behind paywall) here.
Read the English version of the article (behind paywall) here.
Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ)
“De-mystifying the Energiewende”
The discussion about the German project Energiewende is “dominated by illusions and myths”, writes Christoph Eisenring in Neue Zürcher Zeitung. The energy transition “doesn’t help the global climate, is irresponsibly expensive and pulls a sector more and more from a market economy to a planned economy”, writes Eisenring. “The government should consider the Energiewende finished and get used to the slightly less ambitious goals of the EU.”
Read the article in German here.
EnBW / Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
“EnBW turns off electricity for major customers”
As part of its programme of economy measures, German utility EnBW is withdrawing from electricity and gas sales to large customers, according to a press release by the company. “[W]e came to the clear conclusion that it will neither be possible to operate the traditional large customer business profitably for us in the future, nor does it offer sufficient growth potential,” said Thomas Kusterer, CFO of EnBW. The measures would lead to job losses and were just the start, writes Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in an article. EnBW has targeted further cost reductions of about 250 million euro by 2020. The measures were necessary because of the “deterioration in the general conditions”, as well as an intensified competition and the expected costs for the nuclear clean-up, according to the press release.
Find EnBW’s press release in English here.
Read CLEW’s factsheet German utilities and the Energiewende and the CLEW dossier Utilities and the energy transition.
Environment Ministry
“Ministry supports highly innovative procedure in cement industry”
The Ministry for Environment is supporting a project designed to reduce emissions in cement-making in Baden-Württemberg with 5.9 million euros, a press release states. The procedure will be tested for the first time in Germany and is envisaged to reduce emissions by two-thirds and save around 28,200 tonnes of CO2 per year.
Read the press release in German here.
LichtBlick SE
“Intelligent integration – Electric vehicles reduce grid fluctuation”
A joint research project by Volkswagen, LichtBlick, SMA Solar Technology and Fraunhofer IWES has shown that it’s possible to reduce grid fluctuation by integrating electric vehicles into the power system, they announced in press release. When pooling several e-cars they can serve as a battery storage with a significant size, able to both store and release power when necessary.
Read the press release in German here and download the complete project report in German here.
Federal Network Agency
“Consultation on offshore grid development plan 2025”
The Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) has published preliminary test results of the offshore grid development plan for the target year 2025. The agency deems three cable connections to wind offshore parks in the North Sea and Baltic Sea with the option for a fourth connection. The offshore grid development plan will now be publicly consulted. The test of the onshore grid development plan for 2025 will be discontinued, the agency reports. This is a result of the latest reform of the Renewable Energy Act that aims to synchronise the growth of renewables and the grid expansion. The government argues in the draft law (p. 413) that the changes made to the deployment of renewables will alter conditions so much that the 2025 plan could not incorporate these change without long delays. The Federal Network Agency will instead start the process for the 2030 plan soon.
Read the press release in German here.
*Like the Clean Energy Wire, both Agora Energiewende and Agora Verkehrswende are projects funded by Stiftung Mercator and the European Climate Foundation.
