Greens sharpen their eco-profile / New energy 'superpowers'
Handelsblatt
“Greens sharpen their eco-profile”
Germany’s Green Party has called for a coal exit by 2036, Barbara Gillmann reports in the Handelsblatt. By that time, petrol and diesel cars should disappear from Germany’s roads, while the number of buses and trains for public transport should have doubled, the party’s parliamentarians decided at a conference in Weimar. They also want to boost demand for electric cars by offering bonuses to buyers. In order to support divestment from fossil assets by financial institutions, they are calling for more transparency so that consumers can see whether their money is held in sustainable investments.
Read the article in German here.
Spiegel Online
“India, Chile & Co: The energy superpowers of the future”
Powerful energy-rich states like Saudi Arabia and Russia are facing problems since prices for oil, coal and gas are plummeting, writes Nils-Viktor Sorge on news website Spiegel Online. Five other states could instead become the new energy superpowers: India (with solar power), the US (with natural gas and domestic renewables), China (with huge amounts of solar and wind power), Chile (good conditions for wind and solar and a lots of lithium reserves for batteries) and Germany (with its know-how from the energy transition and successful firms in the renewables business like Siemens, Nordex and Enercon), the author predicts.
Read the article in German here.
WirtschaftsWoche
“Elon Musk postpones the revolution”
The dispatch of the Tesla home battery storage unit, Powerwall, which was planned for the last quarter of 2015, has been delayed until sometime in January, writes Jürgen Rees in the business weekly WirtschaftsWoche. Tesla head Elon Musk claims the 7-kilowatt battery for households will revolutionise the way the world uses power, Rees writes. Musk is battling a detail in German legislation that requires the renewables levy and grid fees be applied to power stored at home, making home batteries much less attractive, the author says.
dpa / Süddeutsche Zeitung
“A quarter less”
As of 1 January 2016, primary energy consumption of all new houses must be 25 percent lower than before, German news agency dpa reports. The 2016 reforms to energy saving regulation also prescribe that new houses must have a shell that improves heating protection by 20 percent. Developers have the choice of using renewable energies, heat pumps and wood pellet heating as opposed to oil or gas heating to increase the primary energy factor of their buildings, the article says.
Read the article in German here.
See a CLEW dossier on energy efficiency here.
Strom-Report
Solar energy generation in Germany 2015
2015 was a record breaking year for solar power generation, energy infographics outlet Strom-Report says. Photovoltaics produced 36.8 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, or 5.4 percent more than in 2014. The record day of 2015 was 21 April, when solar panels produced 25.8 million kWh in one hour between 1 and 2pm.
Download the graph here.
Phasenprüfer
“Transmission grid operators expect a massive decrease in solar power earnings”
A study by consultancy Energy Brainpool commissioned by Germany’s transmission grid operators comes to the conclusion that earnings of onshore wind and solar power will drop even further by 2020, Lion Hirth and Jakob Schlandt write on the blog Phasenprüfer. Wind will only earn on average 75 percent of the exchange power price; for solar power it will drop to 85 percent, the authors say. The effect isn’t due to increased solar power development but to cheaper coal power stations setting a lower midday peak price than more expensive gas-fired power plants have done so far, Energy Brainpool suspects.
Read the study in German here.
Read the blog post in German here.
Read a CLEW factsheet on the merit-order effect that determines the power price here.
