Germany’s energy transition is not only expensive, it also increases the country’s CO2 consumption to an extent that even stunned energy experts. “Germany burns a lot of coal,” Cuneyt Kazokoglu recently stated on Twitter. He is director for energy economics and energy transition at the British industry consultancy FGE in London. The burning of coal currently accounts for around 45 percent of all electricity generation in Germany. The energy expert gives several reasons for this. One of them is: “The wind isn’t blowing anymore.”
Germany has invested enormous sums in wind energy, but the wind is failing Germany at this time of year. The result: Germany’s energy consumption is possibly more CO2-intensive than ever, because the country now gets its electricity from coal: A German kWh mainly contains coal – and then nothing comes for a long time:
This has massive consequences for CO2 consumption. The carbon intensity of German electricity rose “to a crazy 745 grams (grams of CO2 per KWh) around the evening hours of November 29,” says Kazokoglu. “That’s higher than South Africa and India.”
The energy expert shakes his head. “I can’t remember seeing German power generation so CO2-intensive – 765g/kWh is insanely high! They simply burn charcoal supplemented with a bit of gas. For comparison, the carbon intensity of Chinese power generation in 2021 was 550 g/kWh. I call that climate hypocrisy.”
What is remarkable is that last year Germany experienced an increase in electricity generation from coal for the first time since 2013. A trend that continues this year. (The provisional data for 2022 is based on production from January to November.)
Cuneyt Kazokoglu refers to the simultaneous 50 percent decline in electricity generation from nuclear energy. “The Grohnde, Brokdorf and Gundremmingen nuclear power plants with a total capacity of 4.2 GW were shut down at the end of last year,” reports the expert.
This brings us to another reason for Germany’s high carbon intensity: the lack of nuclear power. We learn: Germany become CO2-neutral and at the same time do without nuclear power. For the time being, this has gone badly wrong.
