Berlin, 30th November 2009. In this roadmap the BEE shows that Germany can achieve much more than the target of 18% renewables by 2020 with considerable financial and ecological benefits.

By the end of 2007, renewables accounted for 9.8%  of final energy consumption in Germany according to official statistics (8.9% according to Eurostat). This represents more than a threefold increase since 1997. In 2008, according to provisional AGEE-Stat figures (Working Group on Renewable Energy), the share had dropped to 9.5% because of the increase in final energy consumption.

This growth was generated predominantly by medium-sized companies benefiting from reliable and stable conditions created by the EEG (Renewable Energy Sources Act), the market incentive programme and the tax exemption for biofuels, which granted them access to a market which had hitherto been largely dominated by oligopolies.

The electricity sector was responsible for the largest share in the growth of renewables, with the proportion of renewable energies rising from 4.4% in 1997 to 14.2% in 2007 despite an increase in overall consumption. This resulted from the introduction of highly-efficient support instruments: from 1991 to 2000 the Electricity Feed-In Act, and thereafter the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG). The proportion increased again to 15.1% by the end of 2008. This means that Germany has long since reached the indicative target of 12.5% for 2010 set by the EU electricity directive.

In the heating sector on the other hand, the share of renewables has only a little more than doubled, from 3.5% to 7.6%, despite the reduction in consumption. This was because the most important promotional instrument, the market incentive programme, was insufficiently effective particularly in respect of the building stock, because of the unreliable way in which it was organised over the course of several years. There does not appear to have been any significant increase in 2008.

No notable increase in the share of biofuels in the transport sector was apparent until 2005, when the tax exemption for pure biodiesel began to take effect, allowing the growing popularity of bio-diesel in particular to increase the share of biofuels to 6.4% by 2007. This figure fell significantly in 2008 after the promotional instrument was changed from tax exemption to a blending quota. Never-theless, these figures mean that the target of 5.75% by 2010 under the biofuels directive has been met.

The roadmap depicts a realistic and challenging trajectory for growth in renewable energies, assuming that suitable framework conditions continue to exist and/or are developed further.

The full report: