Germany undergoing transition to renewable energy

Berlin. One hundred and twenty eight villagers of Feldheim, a German village located 83 kilometres south of Berlin, are now renewable energy self-sufficient thanks to Germany’s renewable energy transformation called Energiewende.

Ms Kathleen Thompson, one of the villagers, says their village boasts about a wind farm, biogas, a solar plant and biomass facilities.

She says the village is attracting people from across the world every year to learn how the community has leapt to the use of renewable energy.

Indeed, Germany is undergoing energy transformation, which aims at reducing carbon emissions, increasing the use of renewable energy and stopping all nuclear power.

“The village has a wind farm with 47 turbines, which produce 175 million kilowatt hours of electricity every year,” she tells a group of 20 journalists from Africa, Asia and Latin America, who were attending a 10-day 2015 climate change training course for journalists in Berlin.

The course, which started on May 11-20, was funded by the German Federal Foreign Office and was organised by the Ecologic Institute, a trans-disciplinary research organisation focusing on environmental issues.

It was designed to improve participants’ understanding of climate change and prepare them for reporting from international climate negotiations climaxing with a climate conference in Paris in December this year.

The journalists from Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Egypt, Ghana, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Ethiopia, South Africa, Brazil, Jamaica, India, Philippines, Indonesia and South Korea received in-depth training in science of climate change, economic arguments around a climate change policy and an international negotiation process.

All course segments were designed to meet the professional needs of journalists and were presented by a team of experts in climate change science and policy.

According to Ms Thompson, residents and businesses in the village now pay a third less for their electricity than other German communities at 16.5 euro cents per kilowatt hour.

“The rest is sold back to the grid,” she says.

Ms Thompson says following the introduction of renewable energy in the village there have been some benefits, including diversification and commercial exploitation of agricultural products and creation of new jobs in the local farming cooperative.

She says the village has also been able to eliminate imports of 160,000 litres of heating oil annually and generation of business tax revenue from wind farms and biogas plants.

Ms Barbara Hendricks, German Environment Minister, says: “Who would have thought 10 years ago that solar or wind power could be produced at fair market prices? Today, we know that this works.”

She adds: “In Germany, we already cover more than 25 per cent of our electricity requirement by renewable energy sources. By 2050, we want to phase out fossil energy sources.”

Money, which was so far needed for the import of fossil raw materials, is now going to private citizens, cooperatives, farmers or medium-sized enterprises, which have all become their own power generating firms.

She says the shift towards renewable energy means less emissions, less environmental destruction, less air pollution, less lung cancer, strokes, and other ailments.

“I come from a region near a rural area in the centre of German industrialisation. For decades, hot frames of coal mines were a symbol of economic success. Meanwhile, most of them have disappeared,” says Ms Hendricks.

“They have been replaced by solar and wind and other technologies which will supply electricity of tomorrow’s industry and which have become a manifestation of a new era,” she told the 6th Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin, an informal meeting of ministers and representatives from 35 countries in preparation for the UN Climate Change Conference in Paris in December.

Clean Energy Wire (CLEW), a reporter’s guide to the energy transformation, says the energy transition is a gigantic project with countless players that will leave few aspects of Germany’s economy and society untouched.

Already, says the guide, there are winners and big losers where big utilities’ traditional business models have been hit hard while consumers and some businesses are concerned about higher electricity costs.

The German coal industry first benefited from the nuclear phase-out, but its future is now uncertain as the government makes an effort to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, says CLEW.

According to the guide, renewable already covers more than a quarter of Germany’s power consumption and its rise is set to continue.

“With the world watching, it remains to be seen if and how one of the world’s largest industrialised economies can lead the way to a greener economy,” says Carel Mohn, CLEW program director.

He says Germany’s ambitious transition to renewable energy has left major utilities that have dominated the market for decades out in the cold.

“They have started adjusting their business models, yet despite some drastic steps, their future role in Germany’s greener, fast-changing energy markets is far from clear,” says Mr Mohn.

Mr Andreas Kraemer, former director of Ecologic Institute in Berlin, says promoting energy efficiency and renewable energies is a preferred way to the future safe climate for Germany.

“Fossil energy carriers are on the way out, as may be nuclear power,” says Mr Kraemer, who is also a professor at the Berlin Programme of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, in the US.

He says the greatest concern in Germany is not acute domestic effects of climate change, but developments around the world might harm political stability in other countries, result in a loss of trade, induce migration, and ultimately cause conflict.

Dr Christian Redl, a senior associate at Agora Energiewende, a think tank funded by the European Climate Foundation and the Stiftung Mercator that focuses on dialogue with energy policymakers, says the think tank has embarked on a five-year (2013-2017) project focusing on the fundamental transformation of the German power system.

“The project aims at increasing renewable energy from 40 to 45 per cent by 2025 and to 55-60 per cent by 2035,” says Dr Redl.

Dr Redl is also a member of the European Energy Cooperation team aimed at initiating dialogue with a broad range of stakeholders and decision makers in Germany and its neighbouring countries to enhance mutual understanding, identify upcoming challenges and develop joint solutions for energy policies.

In June 2011, the German Parliament ended a long debate of several decades over the future of the country’s energy system with a historical decision—to transform the country’s power from nuclear and coal to renewable within the next four decades.

“The decision was also historical because it was an almost unanimous vote, a consensus of ruling and opposition parties,” says a document produced by Agora.

It says Germany will phase out nuclear energy with the remaining power plants gradually closed down by 2022.

Rainer Baake, State Secretary at the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, says: “We strongly believe that many of the development we currently see in Germany will be highly relevant for other countries and regions as well—certainly, but not only, in Europe where Germany is a key part of the integrated energy system.”

He adds: “Our main insight certainly applies beyond Germany as wind and solar are abundantly available in most regions of the world and production costs are going down rapidly.”

In many countries, he says, wind power and photovoltaics will form the basis of the future, a low-carbon energy system and bring with them similar challenges that Germany is facing today.