Wednesday, December 15, 2021
Too little wind
Share of green electricity will decrease in 2021
By the year 2030, 80 percent of the electricity demand in Germany should be covered by renewable energies, according to the declared goal of the new federal government. This year, however, the proportion has only decreased once. The reasons for this are the economy – and the weather.
According to a forecast, the eco share of electricity consumption in Germany will decline again in 2021. While in 2020 just under 46 percent of the electricity consumed in Germany came from renewable energies, the proportion in 2021 was a good 42 percent according to preliminary calculations. This is at the pre-Corona level, in 2019 the proportion was 42.5 percent. This is the result of calculations by the Federal Association of Energy and Water Management (BDEW) and the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW).
The BDEW cites the weather as the main reason for the decline: it is true that electricity generation from solar energy has increased by almost five percent. However, the first half of the year in particular was significantly less windy than in the previous year. In addition, electricity consumption increased again in 2021 as a result of the economic recovery. This also had a dampening effect on the share of renewable energies in electricity consumption, according to the industry association.
According to the calculations, wind power generated on land accounted for the largest share among renewables with an estimated 16 percent of gross electricity generation, followed by solar power with almost 9 percent. According to the forecast, around 7.5 percent of electricity was generated with the help of biomass, with wind turbines at sea contributing a good 4 percent.
BDEW boss Kerstin Andreae called the goal of the new federal government to increase the share of renewables to 80 percent by 2030 as “ambitious”. The government must now quickly “remove existing obstacles and restrictions for the expansion of renewables and implement the measures announced in the coalition agreement as quickly as possible”. This applies, for example, to the acceleration of planning and approval processes or the provision of two percent of the federal area for wind turbines.