German energy transition stagnating in many sectors – report

Progress of German energy transition continues to be mostly stagnating,  a report by research centre Prognos carried out on behalf of the Bavarian Industry Association (vbw) said. It found that eight out of ten indicators for the energy transition in Germany show the same low rating as in the previous monitoring. The authors looked at indicators such as affordability, energy efficiency, renewables, environmental impact, and energy supply security and assigned many of them the lowest possible rating in both 2023 and 2024. Ratings also did not improve significantly compared to previous monitoring done by Prognos.

While solar PV expansion meeting its targets represented an improvement, a continued gap between growing wind power capacity and parallel grid expansion showed shortcomings on other self-imposed goals. The decrease of primary energy consumption in 2023 has led to an increasing share of renewable energy production and less coal-fired power generation, according to the report. Reasons for the lower primary energy consumption include the deactivation of the country’s last three nuclear plants as well as high energy prices and economic challenges that led to a shrinkage of energy-intensive industry production in Germany are, the report added.

Germany is struggling to reach its self-imposed climate targets. Putting the country on track for its numerous emissions cutting and energy transition ambitions until 2030 will be the task of the next government, which is expected to take shape in spring.