In the media: Power shortage risks, storage debate, hydrogen filling stations
Tagesspiegel Online
"Power in short supply"
Warnings by large German electricity producers about looming power shortages are exaggerated, Patrick Graichen, head of the energy policy think tank, Agora Energiewende, tells Tagesspiegel Online’s Dagmar Dehmer in an interview. Utilities have repeatedly complained that they must continue to operate loss-making fossil fuel-fired power stations in order to provide energy when the preferred renewable sources, wind and sun, are unavailable. In the interview, Graichen calls for new market mechanisms that would reward large power consumers for adapting their demand more flexibly to fluctuating power generation.
Like the Clean Energy Wire, Agora Energiewende is a project funded by Stiftung Mercator and the European Climate Foundation.
See the article in German here.
Hamburger Abendblatt
Energy and auto industry groups to build 400 hydrogen filling stations in Germany
The industrial gas companies Air Liquide and Linde, together with energy producers Shell, Total and OMV and the carmaker Daimler hope German competition authorities will approve their planned network of hydrogen filling stations by the end of the year, Olaf Preuß writes in a feature about the new car fuel technology in the Hamburger Abendblatt. The initiative, called H2 Mobility, plans to build 400 stations across Germany by 2023.
See the article in German here.
RenewableEnergy World
“German experts lock horns over storage”
A study by energy think tank, Agora Energiewende, has unleashed a heated debate among other institutes and lobby groups about how much storage capacity will be needed – and when – for electricity generated by renewable energy, according to a feature by Paul Hockenos in Renewable Energy World. Agora maintains that the German energy system can still keep the flexibility it needs, expanding renewables by cheaper means than investing in new storage technology. They argue that this can be done using demand-side management, flexible conventional power plants, and grid expansion. Other experts disagree.
Like the Clean Energy Wire, Agora Energiewende is a project funded by Stiftung Mercator and the European Climate Foundation.
See the article in English here.
Bloomberg
"Germany Turning Against Coal Lifts Reliance on Russia"
Bloomberg reports that the German government’s plans to limit coal use, laid out in a policy paper released on Friday, could result in higher energy prices for consumers as more subsidies will be needed for renewables, and at the same time increase reliance on gas imports from Russia, citing energy market analysts and industry sources. The article says this is would “run counter to efforts by the U.S. and EU to isolate Russia economically.”
See the article here.
