While the government’s Energiewende, or energy transition policy, aims to eliminate non-renewable energy by phasing out nuclear power generation, reducing dependence on energy imports and lowering carbon emissions, 44% of Germany’s electricity production was still generated from coal last year, the EIA said in a report issued on Tuesday.
This is more than renewables, wich increased to 194 billion kilowatt hours last year, representing 31% of Germany’s gross electricity generation, representing the largest in both percentage and absolute terms (19% and 32BkWh respectively) in at least a decade.
Nuclear energy constitutes 15% of the country’s electricity generation, other fossil fuels 11%.
Germany’s electricity generated from renewable sources has tripled over the past 10 years, and Energiewende wants it to ramp up to 40-45% by 2025 and to more than 80% by 2050.
Most of Germany's expected growth in renewable electricity comes from solar photovoltaics and wind, which currently provide 20% of its total electricity.
Hydropower and other renewables such as biomass and waste provided 11% of Germany's overall electricity supply in 2015, but the EIA does not expect these shares to grow significantly.
Germany’s government has supported renewable electricity growth by promising a fixed, above-market price for every kilowatt hour of energy generated by solar PV or wind and delivered to the grid, a policy known as a feed-in tariff.
By law, these renewable sources have priority over traditional generation, meaning that other forms of generation must be curtailed to accommodate fluctuations in renewable electricity generation.
Over the past five years, these policies have helped to double the amount of wind generation, the EIA said.
Germany has made several changes to its energy policies to promote renewable growth while also controlling costs.
In 2014, changes were made to the feed-in tariffs. In the future, instead of fixed tariffs, electricity producers may have to compete in auctions. If renewable growth targets are exceeded in a given year, the feed-in tariff incentives for the following year would decrease to balance the growth.
