

Germany’s future hydrogen needs significantly higher than expected – report.German government's 'steel strategy' aims to secure climate-friendly production.Hydrogen push ignites next stage of Germany's energy transition.Join us in following this development, including its inevitable highs and lows. As are funding announcements and bilateral agreements between Germany and other countries. But how soon will the to-date little tested and highly expensive technology be able to punch coal out of the ring and lose its right of admission to the country’s steel factories? New projects, turning former coal plant sites into hydrogen hubs and bundling funding and know-how from energy providers, grid operators and industry seem to spring up by the minute. As fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas are no longer feasible options in a net-zero emissions world (even in the heavy industry) using green hydrogen made with renewable electricity is the German government’s favourite solution. German election primer - Faster renewables expansion vital for next government's climate policyĮight months into 2021 and the hydrogen buzz is not letting up.

What's new in Germany's Renewable Energy Act 2021.The EEG's fate is connected to multiple other important issues: the issue of increasing electricity demand due to new power guzzlers such as e-cars and heat pumps slow additions of wind power capacity, thanks to critical citizens and red-tape in planning procedures, and the soon inevitable change in Germany’s system of taxes and levies on energy to make it aid rather than hamper the transition to a fully renewable power system. So more serious changes to the book of renewables may be in hand. But since the latest 2021 reform, all parties are calling for a change in EEG funding (not via peoples’ power bills but from the state budget) and the view of many conservative and liberal energy politicians is that renewables should be made even more market ready. The law that introduced feed-in tariffs for renewable power producers turned 20 years old in 2020 and is so far going strong, although many changes to the way renewable installations can get their funding have been made in the meantime. Renewable power technologies such as wind turbines, solar PV panels and biogas plants have reshaped Germany’s power mix to the degree that 46 percent of electricity demand was covered by renewables in 2020 – and what made it happen? The Renewable Energy Act ( EEG).
