Efficiency target in danger - report / Concerns about future grid

The would-be coalition partners’ plan to reach a 65 percent share of renewables in Germany’s power mix by 2030 is an “ambitious target,” said Jochen Homann, president of the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA), at a meeting  held on the eve of the E-world energy and water fair in Essen. The draft treaty of Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative CDU/CSU alliance and the Social Democrats (SPD) states that the country’s grid must be able to manage additional power flows. “I think the politicians were smart to include this provision,” said Homann. They had done so “knowing that the grid would not be able to cope.”

Most Germans are more afraid of looming driving bans for polluting cars in inner cities than of the air pollution associated with these cars, says Klaus Müller, head of Germany’s federal consumer advice centre association vzbv, in an interview with Zeit Online. “It’s very clear. Driving bans are the more urgent issue. You simply cannot taste or see nitrogen oxides. That’s what makes it so difficult to assess how dangerous they really are,” Müller says. However, he says the problem of air pollution must be addressed, and that Germany’s federal states will have to present a credible solution to the problem if they want to avoid a ruling by the Federal Administrative Court on 22 February that could introduce immediate bans in several cities.

Find the interview in German here.

See the CLEW article on Germany’s diesel summit and its relevance for climate policy here.

The decline of diesel cars’ share in new registrations in Germany continues, figures for January released by the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) show. While the total number of newly registered passenger cars rose by 11.6 percent compared to the same month in 2017 to nearly 270,000 vehicles, the share of diesel vehicles fell by 17.6 percent. Cars with petrol engines accounted for almost 62 percent of all new registrations, and diesel cars for 33.3 percent, the KBA says. Registrations of electric cars rose by nearly 109 percent to about 2,765 vehicles – about 1 percent of all new cars on the road in January. The share of hybrid vehicles stood at 3.4 percent, cars running on natural gas reached 0.3 percent and liquefied natural gas vehicles 0.1 percent. The average CO2 emissions level of new cars rose by 0.5 percent to 128.4 grams per kilometre.
In a separate press release, the Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (BAFA) says the buyer’s premium for electric cars issued by the German government has so far been most successful in the southern state of Bavaria, where about 6,600 people applied for the premium. The total number of applications for purely electric, hybrid and fuel-cell cars since the premium was introduced in July 2016 stands at 50,963, the BAFA says.

Find the KBA press release in German here and the BAFA press release in German here.

German coal mining company Mibrag posted a 43.7 million euro loss in 2016, Mitteldeutsche Zeitung reports. Mibrag, one of Germany’s four remaining lignite-mining companies, was suffering from Germany’s transition from fossil energy sources to renewables (the Energiewende) and falling wholesale power prices, a company statement says. 2017 would see a positive result again, the press release said. Mitteldeutsche Zeitung ascribed the 2016 loss to the shut-down of the Buschhaus power station, one of eight coal plants retired in Germany to reduce CO2 emissions. However, Mibrag will receive compensation payments for the plant in the years to come, the paper says.

Read the newspaper article in German here.