E-mobility and hydrogen compel Germany to boost renewables expansion - utilities

The roll-out of electric cars and the production of synthetic hydrogen-based fuels will push up Germany's demand for electricity in the years to come, resulting in a need to speed up the deployment of renewables, according to the country’s municipal utilities, Energate Messenger reports. According to the article, the public utilities association VKU does not view the government’s forecast, which puts electricity consumption around its current levels in 2030, as tenable. "In addition to electromobility, the production of synthetic gases and liquids is playing an increasingly important role," Ingbert Liebing, managing director of VKU, told Energate. Factors such as the government’s hydrogen strategy are also not considered in the current scenarios, he says. Liebing’s view was that the amendment planned to the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) for September will not be sufficient to achieve Germany’s current renewable aims, which targets a share of 65 percent of power consumption by 2030. He pointed to lagging wind energy expansion due to obstacles in the planning and licensing law, as well as shortfalls in the number of “tenant electricity” projects created under the current framework, and the fact that thousands of older generation systems will not be eligible for EEG funding from 2021.

In an answer to a recent parliamentary inquiry, the government insisted the country has sufficient power generation capacity to accommodate a major expansion in the number of electric cars. At the end of last year, the government even stated it expects total electricity demand in the country to fall slightly below today's level to 590 terrawatt hours in ten years, although adding that "substantial efforts" will be required to increase efficiency.