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Monitoring report on the status of the energy transition

The report published today is a comprehensive analysis of the current status of the energy transition. It presents ten key business-friendly energy policy measures for a competitive economy.

Secure, clean and affordable energy for households, businesses and industry are the core pillar of the energy transition. Today already, 60% of the electricity consumed in Germany is sourced from renewable energies like wind and solar, and the aim is to reach 80% by 2030.

The monitoring report on energy transition published on 15 September - jointly prepared by the Institute of Energy Economics at the University of Cologne (EWI) and BET consultants on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy – consists of some 260 pages packed with information on electricity consumption, security of supply, grid expansion, the growth of renewable energies, digitalisation and the market ramp-up of hydrogen.

Katherina Reiche, the Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy, said: “In order to succeed, reliability, security of supply, affordability and viability of the energy system must be at the centre of our economy. As it is only through secure, clean and affordable energy that we will be able to secure jobs, maintain our competitiveness and strengthen social cohesion.”

The energy transition will only succeed if we act in a more pragmatic and more realistic way. The Minister said that decisions relating to energy policy must not lead to stranded investments or overregulation but must focus on the market, on technological diversity and innovation. The Minster presented ten business-friendly key measures for a competitive economy that are to support this goal, including identifying what is actually needed, committing to realistic planning, funding renewable energies in a way that is useful to markets and the system, introducing technology-neutral capacity markets, ensuring more flexibility and digitalisation of the electricity system, preserving and expanding uniform and liquid energy markets, promoting innovation and research, and ensuring pragmatic funding for the hydrogen ramp-up. CCS/CCU (in German only), i.e., the capture and storage or use of carbon dioxide, are also to be established as a climate action technology.

All ten proposed key measures, including explanations, can be found here. The video of the press conference is available online here.