Debate
A 2009 study from RWI Essen of the effects of the Renewable Energy Sources Act concluded that:
- using photovoltaics in emission reduction is 53 times more expensive than the European Union Emission Trading Scheme's market price, while wind power is 4 times more expensive, thereby discouraging other industries from finding more cost-effective methods of reducing emissions;
- although renewable energy subsidies increase retail electricity rates by 3%, they reduce the profits of German electrical utilities by an average of 8%, making them less competitive with other European utilities;
- despite lavish subsidies, Germany's photovoltaic industry is losing its market share to other countries, particularly China and Japan;
- it stifles renewable energy innovation by arbitrarily awarding subsidies to different technologies, instead of according to their cost-effectiveness.
Germany's Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety responded to the RWI Essen study, describing the criticisms as "well known and refuted a long time ago".
In 2013, Peter Altmaier, an environment minister in Germany stated.
The costs of our energy reform and restructuring of energy provision could amount to around 1 trillion euros by the end of the 2030s...We need a cost brake that will limit the costs of renewable energy equally for all consumers for the long term.Germany was generating about 25 percent of its electricity from coal, about 61 percent from fossil fuels in total, 23 percent from nuclear power and about 15-20 percent from renewable sources in 2009. In 2012 The German electricity sector increased its coal usage by 4.9 percent over its coal consumption value of 2011. This increase in coal usage was largely due to a power gap in Germany created after the nation shutdown 8 of its 17 nuclear power plants. The shortfall in electricity supply from these 8 power plants, is primarily being filled by building more lignite coal burning power plants. The return to coal in Germany, beginning in 2011, could undermine the nations legal commitment to the kyoto protocol's carbon dioxide reductions.
In 2012, the use of variable renewable energy is, according to the German newspaper Der Spiegel, causing increasing electricity prices and grid instability induced power outages. Based on official statistics for the period between 2007 and 2012, electricity prices for industrial consumers in Germany decreased from €94.6 to €89.5 per MWh. Based on the same statistics for the period between 2006 and 2012, electricity prices for industrial consumers in Germany increased from €87.1 to €89.5 per MWh in 2012. Moreover, according to a 2012 survey conducted by members of the Association of German Industrial Energy Companies in relation to power outages:
The number of short interruptions to the German electricity grid has grown by 29 percent in the past three years. Over the same time period, the number of service failures has grown 31 percent, and almost half of those failures have led to production stoppages. Damages have ranged between €10,000 and hundreds of thousands of euros, according to company information.Read more about this topic: Renewable Energy In Germany
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