Germany generates enough power to meet e-car growth, government says

Germany’s federal government believes the country has sufficient power generation capacity to accommodate a major expansion in the number of electric cars, according to a parliamentary report. The government made the statement in response to a list of questions submitted by lawmakers from the right-wing populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD) about the impact on infrastructure and other issues related to the expansion of e-mobility in the country. Germany wants to expand the number of electric cars to 10 million by 2030, with a total of 300,000 charging points to be added, according to the government. There are worries that this might put great pressure on grid infrastructure, though field trials have shown that parallel charging of high e-car volumes is feasible.

The government said that five million battery-powered electric cars would use between 12.5 and 15 TWh annually—equal to less than three percent of Germany’s total gross energy consumption of 580 TWh for 2019. “In this respect, sufficient electricity generation capacity is available,” the government wrote.

The AfD has made a major political strategy out of its criticism of the government’s climate change policies. Party leaders have publicly cast doubt on the scientific consensus that human-caused greenhouse gas emissions are a key driver of global warming.