Gov advisers call for e-car quota / Wind & solar's hunger for land

If Germany wants to remain true to its pledge to generate most of its energy from renewable sources by 2050, the additional land area used for windfarms and solar PV installations will be significant, Dirk Asendorpf writes in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit. According to a study conducted by science academies Acatech, Leopoldina, and others, nearly 5,000 square kilometres will be used for solar and about 7,000 square kilometres more for wind power generation if the electrification of the heating and transport sectors, powered by renewable sources, is carried out as envisaged, Asendorpf says. “That’s much more than all the area covered by water in Germany combined”, he says, adding that “in 30 years’ time, we’ll barely recognise our country anymore”. The study’s authors say that changes to the landscape could be so drastic that “problems in acceptance” could lead to the failure of the planned expansion.

Find the study in German here.

See the CLEW factsheet Fighting windmills: when growth hits resistance for background.

The German wind power industry keeps jumping from one output and price record to another, but it is nevertheless headed for a slump in 2019 if policymakers do not intervene soon, Jürgen Geißinger, CEO of German turbine producer Senvion, says in a guest commentary in the Handelsblatt. The exemption for citizen energy cooperatives that allows them to submit bids in renewables auctions for projects that have not yet obtained a construction license means that it is not clear whether the successful bids will ever be implemented, Geißinger says. “The aim of fair and true competition has been reduced to absurdity this way”, he argues. To preserve the German wind industry’s competitiveness, policymakers must ramp up the expansion goals and introduce equal auction rules for all bidders, Geißinger says.

Find background in the article Booming German wind power sector fears 2019 cliff, and the factsheet From survey to harvest: How to build a wind farm in Germany.

The small municipality of Jemgum on Germany’s North Sea coast could soon become home to a giant battery, which some hail as “the Energiewende’s magic potion”, Burkhard Fraune writes in the WirtschaftsWoche. The redox flow battery, which stores electrical energy in liquid electrolytes, will have the capacity to store the daily power use of 75,000 households, according to operator EWE. The battery, which works with a mixture of saltwater and electrically charged plastic material pumped underground, could turn out to be the German energy transition’s “missing link”, as storing the power generated by intermittent wind and solar power plants is among the greatest challenges for a decarbonised energy system, Fraune says. “But that’s far from being achieved”, he adds. Apart from challenges in achieving the scale for storing enough power to supply the entire country in times of low renewables output, the giant batteries in underground salt domes also raise questions over their potentially detrimental effects on groundwater; the applicability of the concept when there are large differences in the ambient temperature; among many others, Fraune writes. Protests against underground carbon capture and storage (CCS) solutions or against hydraulic fracking show “that these questions need to be answered first”.

Read the article in German here.  

Find the EWE press release in German here.

See the CLEW factsheet How can Germany keep the lights on in a renewable energy future? for more information.

European carmakers are working hard to improve low-emission technologies to avoid having to pay hefty fines after 2021, when the EU’s new CO₂ limits for cars take effect, report Jan Schwartz, Irene Preisinger, and Ilona Wissenbach for Reuters. Manufacturers run the risk of having to pay hundreds of millions of euros in fines should their fleets’ emissions exceed limits after 2021. As mass production of full electric cars remains slow, 48 Volt mild hybrids offer an affordable short-term alternative technology for reducing emissions, write the authors. Strong SUV sales over the past years have had a particularly bad influence on fleet CO₂ emissions, they write.

Read the article in German here.

For background, read the CLEW article EU car emission limits too weak for German climate targets – experts.

Two-thirds of Germans say that the commitment by the government to get past the diesel scandal was bad or very bad, according to a survey conducted by pollster Kantar Emnid, and commissioned by the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (vzbv). Sixty-two percent say the same about the commitment by manufacturers. vzbv calls for hardware retrofitting measures financed by carmakers, and wants guarantees that these would not worsen the cars’ performance or fuel use.

Find the press release in German here, and the survey results in German here.

Find background in the CLEW factsheet "Dieselgate"- a timeline of Germany's car emissions fraud scandal.