Sudhir Chella Rajan GERMANY’S ENERGIEWENDE – WHAT LESSONS FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD?

Is Germany the world leader in energy ambition? Energiewende – an energy turnaround or transformation One-third renewable share for electricity by 2020 Cut primary energy consumption by one-fifth below 2008 levels by 2020; half by 2050 Emission reduction of 80% by 2050 Phase out nuclear by 2022 (original phase-out decision was made in 2002 and extended in 2010 by Merkel)

Renewable Energy Sources Act (2012) Sustainable development of energy supply. Protecting climate and the environment. Reducing the costs of energy supply to the national economy. Further development of technologies for the generation of electricity from renewable energy sources.

A changing supply mix

Already ramping up renewable shares Economist 2012

Policy strategies to promote renewables Feed-in tariffs (FiT), Dedicated renewables loan programmes, Support to research and development activities (R&D) (direct funding, demonstration projects, innovation alliances etc.) as part of science and innovation policies. No local content policies nor government procurement or renewables purchase obligations are in place at either the federal or the state level. German policy scenario therefore a combination of a robust legal and policy framework, sustained funding of a diversified set of research institutions and an emphasis on price-based rather than quota-based investment incentives

FiT lower than electricity rate – what’s the incentive? “Self-Consumption” rates

Other factors With PV panel prices down by more than 60 per cent over the last six years, the expansion of capacity has exceeded government targets by a factor of two. Self-consumption drives energy conservation by consumers since the more families and businesses conserve energy, the greater share they can displace with their own solar generation. The local power grid is stabilized by improving the match between local demand and local solar power production. The benefit of this match is potentially enormous: large concentrations of self- consuming installations enable higher penetrations of distributed generation and can help avoid costly distribution system upgrades. Since the financial value proposition of self-consumption increases with more on-site solar energy use, such systems increase demand for energy efficiency and energy management devices.

Solar PV world market shares Japan China Germany S. Korea Pegels 2014

Wind converters world market shares Denmark Germany Spain China Pegels 2014

The price of transition?