Once a European leader on climate and renewable energy, Germany has been a disappointment in recent years on several fronts.
But Europe’s largest economy may be on the cusp of a renewed period of change, thanks to the increasing maturity of renewables and the emergence of the Green Party as a major political force.
In the past, much of the world would have watched Berlin’s moves with great interest. Ten years ago, Germany was setting the pace for wind and solar deployment, and developing local supply chains along the way — with companies like Q CELLS, Senvion (then known as REpower) and SolarWorld creating thousands of jobs.
But even during that rollout, the political will that helped spark it was waning.
Despite all the potential and the momentum built up over the course of a decade, Germany has ended up wearing the laggard label. Even its latest commitments, made after grueling and protracted deliberation, have been deemed underwhelming.
Solar support under Germany’s feed-in tariff was capped, and utility-scale projects limited to 10 megawatts or less. Public opinion turned on onshore wind, and even Merkel’s own personal climate commitment was not going to overcome it.
Meanwhile, Germany pushed back on tougher EU emissions standards for cars at the behest of its economically critical auto industry. As early as 2018, the government acknowledged it would not hit its 2020 emissions reduction targets.
But things are changing again. Merkel will be stepping down at the next election, currently penciled in for Autumn 2021. There are new and powerful voices in German politics that Merkel and her successor will need to follow.
And then there are Germany’s industrial giants, whose story has changed in recent years too.
These days, Germany’s government is not only lagging its peers in Western Europe, it’s falling behind its industrial stalwarts.
The politics of German energy
Germany’s upcoming election could be a catalyst for a new period of change, and the energy and climate package passed last year could get an overhaul.
But the shape of the next government remains hard to predict in a country where coalitions governments are the norm, said Felix Heilmann from the climate and energy think tank E3G.
“If we have a different government, which might involve the Greens in Federal government, they will certainly reopen the [2030 energy] package and renegotiate parts of it,” Heilmann told GTM.
The current government is an uneasy coalition of Germany’s two largest political parties, Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats and the center-left Social Democrats. However, in December the junior partner, the SDP, elected a more leftwing leadership that has been more vocal in its criticism of its colleagues in the CDU.
In this environment antagonizing the coal lobby, or the communities understandably ill at ease over their future, was not on the cards.
Heilmann attributes this progress for the Greens to their new leadership and a shift away from radicalism. Instead, the Greens of today are looking for realistic ways to meet radical challenges (i.e. climate change). The Greens are already part of governing coalitions in 11 of the country’s 16 powerful state legislatures.
On the other side of the battle line is Germany’s significant coal lobby.
But Heilmann sees scope for rapid changes in attitudes, due at least in part to the youth climate strikes. The strikes have made an indelible mark on the usual script in Germany, changes that were previewed during state elections.
The Greens’ surge and their influence at a state level meant the party was able to force late changes to the 2030 bill, including ratcheting the proposed €10 ($11.19) per ton carbon tax up to €25 per ton in 2021, rising to €55 in 2025.
On its own, the carbon tax could expedite Germany’s coal phase out and catalyze the need for more generation from alternate sources.
Near-term challenges for wind and solar
That’s the politics. In the immediate future, the wind and solar sectors have to contend with a series of challenges that the 2030 package does little to relieve.
Arguably the least popular single item in the package from a renewables standpoint is the “1km distance rule” for onshore wind, which creates an effective planning buffer zone for wind farms around built up areas and covers half the country’s landmass.
Longer term targets for onshore wind deployment were also scaled back from 80 gigawatts by 2030 to a target range of 67 to 71 gigawatts. The wind lobby is furious.
Germany’s wind power trade association, the BWE, has called the 2030 plan “inadequate” on all fronts — too small to help the country’s struggling wind supply chain or to meet the national climate commitment made under the Paris Agreement.
Germany’s new energy package targets 98 gigawatts of solar capacity by 2030, up from 49 gigawatts currently.
“This is a step in the right direction, but urgently requires further improvements and rapid legal concretization,” Carsten Körnig, managing director of the solar trade group BSW. “Otherwise, as a result of the nuclear and coal phase-out and a growing demand for electricity, the security of supply with climate-friendly energy will be seriously endangered as early as the mid-2020s.”
Yet while Germany’s wind and solar industries both face near-term headwinds, their fortunes could change again just in time for a political shift.
With a goal to hit 65 percent renewables by 2030, and some face-saving to do after missing its 2020 emissions targets, permitting delays and other problems for onshore wind developers may have helped galvanize support for the 20-gigawatt offshore wind target in the 2030 energy package. Germany recently hit its 6.5-gigawatt offshore target for 2020.
As for solar, Germany added 4 gigawatts in 2019, its best year since 2012. And projects are getting larger, helping developers take advantage of economies of scale.
Expect to see more post-subsidy wind and solar in Germany in 2020, and potentially another new chapter for the country’s once-roaring energiewende.
Source: Greentech Media
