The start of the Detroit Auto Show once again shows that German carmakers lag behind on e-mobility, as they are mainly presenting conventional cars, write Thomas Fromm and Max Hägler in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “They’re still not here, the fascinating e ...
In terms of e-mobility technology, Germany has moved into a leading global position, but in industry, China has taken over the lead thanks to its higher production levels and value creation, according to business consultancy Roland Berger’s E-Mobility ...
The G20 summit in Germany in July 2017 will provide an important opportunity for major powers to resist backsliding on global climate goals, despite uncertainties after the US election, and it could even aid progress, according to a post on ...
Euro 6 diesel cars on average emit more than double the amount of NOx as modern trucks or buses, according to emissions data from Germany and Finland examined by the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT). “The average NOx emissions of the ...
Almost two-thirds of German car-buyers surveyed consider electric vehicles to be a transport option of the future, but almost half said it was unlikely they would buy one in the next four years, according to research by YouGov and the Center of Automotive ...
The battered German makers of solar power panels are looking to 2017 for a change of fortunes as they anticipate more homeowners and businesses installing rooftop systems paired with battery storage, Milena Merten reports in Handelsblatt. Rooftop solar ...
The Federal Environment Agency’s (UBA) proposal to raise the reduced VAT on animal products has no chance of enforcement due to widespread opposition, but is principally a reasonable means for climate protection, writes Georg Ehring in an opinion piece ...
Grid operator 50Hertz registered a record wind power feed-in of more than 14,000 megawatt in its control area during a storm on 4 January, the company announced in a press release. “We have been successful in securely managing our transmission grid even ...
Five people are employed around the clock in the control room of the first German lignite plant switched off to protect the climate, according to a feature by Steffen Höhne in Frankfurter Rundschau. They are there to keep the station fit for service but ...
The transition to electric and autonomous cars will take much longer than enthusiasts anticipate, writes Holger Appel in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Not a single e-car suitable for the mass-market is available, and the highly anticipated models of ...
Audi, BMW, and Daimler hit the bull’s eye by managing to enlist Intel and Asian investors for their mapping service HERE, which is central to their autonomous driving ambitions, writes Michael Kröger for Spiegel Online. “For the German makers of premium ...
The popularity of sport utility vehicles (SUVs) continues to grow in Germany. New SUV registrations rose by a quarter last year, outpacing all other vehicle classes, according to the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA). But new cars’ average CO 2 ...
Almost half of car buyers in Germany – 44 percent- think about purchasing an electric vehicle, according to a survey by business consultancy McKinsey. But only three percent decided to buy such a vehicle. A quarter of those polled said the price of an e ...
Consumer association myRight has filed the first lawsuit in Germany aiming to force carmaker Volkswagen to repurchase vehicles affected by the emissions scandal, writes Andreas Cremer for Reuters. VW pledged to compensate owners of its cars in the US but ...
German coal mining state Brandenburg premier Dietmar Woidke has rejected calls for an end date for the country’s use of lignite for power generation. “A discussion on whether we will switch off brown coal in 10, 20 or 40 years would only lead to a loss of ...
Germany’s buyer’s premium for electric cars introduced last year has had a meagre impact, writes Hanne Schweitzer in Zeit Online. The money earmarked for the incentive can cover between 300,000 and 400,000 cars, but authorities received a mere 9,023 ...
The fondness of Germans for firecrackers released about 4,000 tonnes of particulate matter during New Year celebrations – about 15 percent of what vehicles in the country emit during an entire year, Christoph Behrens writes in Süddeutsche Zeitung. On New ...
The term “fracking”, commonly understood in Germany as unconventional gas drilling by means of chemicals, has discredited almost any form of onshore welling in the country regardless of its actual environmental impact, Frank Pergande writes in Frankfurter ...
Federal environment minister Barbara Hendricks criticised Hungary’s prime minister Viktor Orbán’s plans for a law that would allow his government to ignore the national nuclear regulating institution when constructing new reactors, write Michael ...
One year after its split, renewables utility E.ON needs to lower costs and is eyeing cuts in administrative jobs at its headquarters in Essen, CEO Johannes Teyssen told the Rheinische Post in an article by Antje Höning. The extent of the job cuts remains ...
Car suppliers whose sales depend largely on the combustion engine face a difficult future after the emissions scandal and analysts predict stock prices will remain relatively unchanged over the coming year, writes Martin Gropp in Frankfurter Allgemeine ...
German carmakers rank first in worldwide research and development, accounting for about a third of the automobile industry’s total global R&D investment, according to the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA). The country’s manufacturers ...
The problem of finding a final repository for Germany’s nuclear waste does not have “a solution in the true sense of the word, but only makeshift at best”, Reinhard Breidenbach writes in an opinion piece for Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz. Advocates of nuclear ...
“Secret settlements” between Volkswagen dealers and customers have helped avoid landmark decisions against the carmaker before higher German courts and could lead to the limitation of claims for customers affected by the emissions scandal, write Markus ...
Dieselgate is not over yet for carmaker Volkswagen despite several agreements and progress made in Germany and worldwide over the past couple of days, write Carsten Germis and Roland Lindner in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “The largest remaining factor ...
Germany’s federal cabinet has agreed on a law that is aimed at facilitating the search for a final repository for the country’s nuclear waste by 2031, the Federal Ministry for the Environment has said in a press release. Environment minister Barbara ...
Several lawsuits regarding high nitrogen oxide emission levels – filed by the non-profit environmental and consumer protection association Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) in the recent past – start to have consequences for cities and carmakers, writes Stefan ...
German economy minister Sigmar Gabriel rejects blanket bans for heavily polluting cars in inner cities in order to bring down unlawfully high nitrogen oxide (NO x) values, Markus Balser and Michael Bauchmüller write in Süddeutsche Zeitung. Gabriel’s ...
Germany and Belgium have signed an agreement on improving the exchange of information on nuclear security, the federal environment ministry announced in a press release. The neighbouring countries also instituted a nuclear commission that will meet at ...
Contrary to expert opinion, Germany’s economy minister Sigmar Gabriel wants to retrieve nuclear waste from the former salt mine Asse II, located in the minister’s constituency of Wolfenbüttel, Daniel Wetzel writes in Die Welt. An expert commission found ...
There is to date no sensible reason to buy an electric car, writes Markus Fasse in a commentary for Handelsblatt. “Even Daimler’s CEO, Dieter Zetsche, admits that,” Fasse writes, explaining that e-cars are too expensive, have a limited cruising range, ...
Volkswagen, Germany’s largest car manufacturer, has agreed to a settlement of more than 2.1 billion Canadian dollars (1.5 billion euros) for manipulating emission tests, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reports. Together with its subsidiary Audi, VW ...
The German government might not have been persistent enough in the past in questioning emissions data from German carmakers, economy minister Sigmar Gabriel said in a hearing before a Bundestag committee of inquiry. “We have to ask ourselves whether we ...
The diesel emissions scandal forces German carmaker Audi to cut costs and increase efficiency “wherever possible”, writes Henning Peitsmeier for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Many investments “which would have easily passed any budget meeting of ...
Elmar Degenhart, Chairman of the Executive Board of German car supplier Continental, does not expect to make profits with products in the e-mobility sector before 2020, he told WirtschaftsWoche in an interview. “The transition from the combustion engine ...
The German parliament’s vote to free nuclear plant operators of their liabilities for managing nuclear waste disposal has not ensured that all troubles have been dispelled, writes Michael Bauchmüller in Süddeutsche Zeitung. “New frictions are guaranteed, ...
The German parliament (Bundestag) has voted for a government bill to change regulations for combined heat and power (CHP) electricity production, including amendments by the economy ministry (BMWi), the Bundestag writes in a press release. It stipulates ...
German economy minister Sigmar Gabriel’s attempts to negotiate a postponement for German carmakers to implement China’s new mandatory e-car quota have been in vain, Christoph Giesen and Max Hägler write in Süddeutsche Zeitung. Beijing is determined to put ...
The constantly growing engine performance of newly registered passenger cars in Germany is largely caused by the popularity of powerful SUVs, Thomas Fromm writes in Süddeutsche Zeitung. “Carmakers don’t build the cars which per se are the most ...
The environment ministry’s new Climate Protection Report showed that the 2020 emissions reduction target of 40 percent could only be reached if the German economy collapsed, writes Michael Bauchmüller in Süddeutsche Zeitung. “In theory, the German climate ...
Thuringia, the state of Berlin, and Rhineland-Palatinate are the German pioneers regarding sustainable mobility, according to the Federal State Index Mobility and Environment 2016/17 by Allianz pro Schiene, Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND) and the ...
The protest against lignite mining in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia turns increasingly violent, writes Reiner Burger in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In the area of the open pit lignite mine Hambach, “a small group of self ...
Essen district court has rejected a lawsuit brought by Peruvian farmer Saúl Lliuya’s against German utility RWE, for contributing to environmental damage in his hometown of Huarez, news agency Reuters reports. Lliuya demanded 17,000 euros in compensation ...
The German federal parliament (Bundestag) has voted by a large majority to transfer liabilities for storing nuclear waste to the state, the Bundestag has stated in a press release. The legislative proposal introduced by the government stipulates that ...
Laboratory emissions tests carried out by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) for the European Commission suggested that Audi manipulated the diesel engine in the current A3 model to meet emissions limits, report Joachim Becker, Alexander Mühlauer and Klaus ...
Emission reduction targets for the building sector laid out in Germany’s Climate Action Plan 2050 combined with a planned limit to passing on modernising costs to tenants could “end in disaster” if landlords had to foot the bill, writes Michael Fuchs, ...
Germany’s Climate Action Programme 2020, initiated in 2014 to ensure the country meets its 2020 greenhouse gas emission targets, is likely to be less effective than expected, the Environment Ministry (BMUB) said in a press release. Projections for the ...
The Lower Rhine Chamber of Industry and Commerce has warned against planned legislation to standardise electricity grid fees across the country, the Rheinische Post reports. The organisation, which represents business interests in the region appealed to ...
Germany will have to gradually lower its coal-fired power production to meet its climate targets, the federal government writes in response to a parliamentary inquiry by the Left Party. But it adds that a coal phase-out cannot commence until regions have ...
The government’s decision to finance the country’s nuclear waste management with a public fund could poison the national debate for years to come, Thorsten Knuf writes in an opinion piece for Frankfurter Rundschau. Nuclear plant operators agreed to pay ...
The G20 must resolutely advance and implement both the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, according to a special report by German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), an independent scientific advisory body. The nations ...
German national railway company Deutsche Bahn will have to indirectly contribute around 350 million euros to the state-administered fund to finance interim and final storage of nuclear waste in 2017, report Jürgen Flauger and Dieter Flockenbrock for ...
Annual climate protection efforts must be quadrupled compared to the average over the past ten years in order for Germany to reach its goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2020, according to members of the Green Party parliamentary ...
Nuclear plant operators removed the last hurdle to an agreement with the government over who will pay for storage and clean-up of nuclear waste after power plants are shut down in 2020, writes Manfred Schäfers in FAZ.net. Operators agreed to revoke most ...
According to Thorsten Deppner, an expert on environmental law, the German state would not necessarily have to pay huge sums in compensation for shutting down coal-fired electricity plants, despite a precedent set by a recent constitutional court ruling on ...
Germany’s long-established battery producer Varta is confident that large-scale battery production for e-cars is economically viable in the high-wage country, Max Hägler writes in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “Battery cell production is definitely possible in ...
The EU Commission should admit that it did little to ensure its own anti-pollution rules were enforced, and that carmakers were long suspected of using technology to get around emissions rules, says Sebastian Schöbel, ARD radio correspondent in Brussels ...
The European Commission’s decision to start infringement proceedings against a number of European countries for failing to cooperate in emissions cheating investigations is “long overdue,” writes Jörg Münchenberg in a commentary for Deutschlandfunk. ...
A new emissions test by German car club ADAC shows that most diesel engines meet legal standards level only on the test bench – falling short on the road, Süddeutsche Zeitung reports. The biggest problem for most diesel engines was high nitrogen oxide. Of ...
The German constitutional court’s judgement on the country’s accelerated nuclear exit in 2011 has dashed hopes of the affected nuclear plant operators to cash in on an assumed violation of the constitution, Varinia Bernau writes in Süddeutsche Zeitung. ...
German utility EnBW starts construction of its first off-shore wind farm in the North Sea ten years after receiving permission, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) reports. The largely state-owned utility will cooperate with Canadian pipeline company ...
Nuclear plant operators affected by Germany’s accelerated nuclear exit after the 2011 Fukushima disaster are eligible for an “adequate” compensation, the Federal Constitutional Court has ruled. The court explained in a press release that the legal ...
Just 1,231 new electric vehicles were registered in November, down 10 percent on the same period last year, Die Welt reports. Part of the reason may be that a subsidy introduced in June boosted sales slightly in the following weeks and resulted in long ...
The German machinery industry is hoping that a revival of fossil-fuel-based industry in the United States, as promised by President-elect Donald Trump, will give makers of mining equipment a boost, writes Thomas Schmelzer in Handelsblatt. The industry has ...
The spread of electronic cars would make Germany’s cities much more hospitable, writes Joachim Käppner in an opinion piece for the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Currently, many cities were unable “to ensure compliance with regulations for clean air even with ...
The German government no longer supports the new construction or overhaul of already decommissioned coal plants via development finance instruments of the World Bank, it said in an answer to a parliamentary inquiry of the Left Party. “Multilateral ...
German utility RWE’s green subsidiary innogy is interested in joining the joint venture automakers announced to deploy a fast-charging network for e-vehicles covering European travel routes, writes Jürgen Flauger in Handelsblatt. “The initiative is ...
The Heinrich Böll Foundation has launched a website to accompany the German G20 presidency. The site offers feature articles, explanatory pieces, interactive maps and factsheets on the G20 issues. “Well-founded information are crucial for honest public ...
Chancellor Angela Merkel said she would try to work on climate policy with US President-elect Donald Trump, who has threatened to pull out of the Paris Agreement, reports news agency Reuters. At a meeting of her party (CDU), Merkel pointed out that ...
BMW, Daimler, Ford, Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche have formed a joint venture to deploy a charging network for e-vehicles covering European travel routes. “The goal is to enable long-distance travel through open-network charging stations along highways and ...
German carmakers are now envisaging the mass production of e-cars, which will have wide-ranging consequences for suppliers, writes Johannes Winterhagen in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Many highly specialised German companies focusing on combustion ...
E.ON is putting together a team of banks and lawyers to support the utility in case of a hostile takeover attempt, according to a report by news agency dpa carried by website manager magazine. A company spokesperson said a “defence mandate” of this kind ...
Germany’s next government should increase the railway’s market share in transportation in order to meet the country’s climate goals, the transport alliance Allianz pro Schiene writes in a press release. The alliance of 23 non-profit organisations and over ...
RWE’s green split-off innogy is working on a system that could make payments between users of e-cars and private providers of charging stations simpler and more secure, writes Manuel Heckel in Handelsblatt. The mode of payment based on the technology ...
Employees in Germany’s mighty car industry are increasingly worried the pending shift to e-cars will lead to massive job losses, report Karl-Heinz Büschemann and Thomas Fromm in Süddeutsche Zeitung. “We will get an enormous problem,” said Hartmut Geisel, ...
Poverty is only one of many explanations as to why around 350,000 German households have their electricity cut off every year because they did not pay their bills, reports Andreas Mihm in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. An as-yet unpublished study for the ...
Federal economy minister Sigmar Gabriel does not support setting an end date for coal-fired power generation in Germany, he said in the plenary of the German Bundestag, reaffirming his position that had held up the government’s Climate Action Plan 2050. ...
E-mobility start-ups in the automobile sector will not pose a threat to established carmakers, because industrial serial production is too expensive and complex, writes Markus Fasse in an opinion piece for Handelsblatt. “Up until now, the million-fold ...
German utility E.ON continues to seek compensation from the German government for the abrupt decision to temporarily shut down two nuclear power plants after the disaster in Fukushima in March 2011, writes Marcus Jung in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. E ...
Carmakers in Germany need to embrace a global “disruptive” shift in mobility by adjusting their production to the looming dominance of e-cars, Peter Altmaier, Chief of the German Chancellery, said at the “ Agenda 2017 ” conference of Tagesspiegel in ...
The cooling water in many of Europe’s nuclear power plants is pre-heated to prevent brittle steel in reactor pressure vessels from breaking, writes Michael Bauchmüller in Süddeutsche Zeitung. “It continues to become more complicated to reach exactly the ...
Germany will not be able to reach its greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction target of 40 percent, compared to 1990, according to a draft of the federal environment ministry’s Climate Protection Report 2016, seen by Tagesspiegel. The targets set for the transport ...
Volkswagen plans to drop diesel vehicles in the United States and refocus on sport utility and electric vehicles, reports Andreas Cremer for Reuters. The move, announced by VW brand chief Herbert Diess, breaks with earlier suggestions it could return to ...
Auto industry unions fear the pending transport revolution puts hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk, reports Alfons Frese in Tagesspiegel. Metalworkers union IG Metall and the heads of work councils at VW, Daimler, Opel, Bosch and Continental propose to ...
The latest remarks of VW’s CEO Michael Müller on Germans’ alleged unwillingness to take advantage of the carmaker’s green product range have caused irritation and protest by politicians and mobility experts, write Stefan Menzel and Dietmar Neuerer in ...
The transition to e-mobility should be organised in a way that prevents “technical or societal breaks”, Holger Appel writes in an opinion piece in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The government should also restrict itself to setting realistic guidelines ...
About a third of German utilities will raise their electricity prices by an average of 3.5 percent in 2017, according to price comparison website verivox. This means additional costs of 41 euros per year for an average four-person home. The suppliers ...
VW, Germany’s biggest carmaker, has specified its ambitions to become the “world market leader in e-mobility”. The company’s “TRANSFORM 2025+” strategy foresees making “e-cars the new trademark” of the core VW company. It also aims to sell one million e ...
The decision of 48 poorer countries to terminate coal-fired power production has sparked calls for Germany to envisage a speedy coal exit as well, the Rheinische Post newspaper reports. The announcement of the Climate Vulnerable Forum’s countries at the ...
The Paris Climate Agreement would never have been approved so quickly without the looming threat of a Donald Trump presidency, writes Michael Bauchmüller in a commentary in Süddeutsche Zeitung. But his election now throws a dark shadow over current ...
If the goal is to limit global greenhouse gas emissions, it is inefficient to break this down into individual national targets, writes Christoph M. Schmidt of Rhineland-Westphalia Institute for Economic Research (RWI Essen) in a guest commentary in Die ...
German chancellor Angela Merkel will seek a fourth term in office in next year’s federal parliamentary elections. She faces a tough campaign unlike any other she has fought in an “increasingly polarised” country, Merkel announced in Berlin. “The decision ...
Daimler employees producing conventional engines, gearboxes and other components feel unsettled by the company’s push into e-mobility despite record sales, reports Susanne Preuß in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Michael Brecht, head of the company’s ...
Slow sales of e-cars are caused by a lack of demand, not supply, VW CEO Matthias Müller told Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in an interview. “On the one hand, many Germans think and act green in their day-to-day lives, but when it comes to e ...
E-cars are already expensive, and more efficient conventional engines will also become more costly regardless of whether they use petrol or diesel, writes Joachim Becker in a commentary in Süddeutsche Zeitung. “Individual mobility will therefore become ...
Environment minister Barbara Hendricks receives respect abroad for Germany’s reputation as a defender of climate protection – but encounters problems at home when she tries to live up to that role, writes Michael Bauchmüller in an opinion piece for ...
Ottmar Edenhofer, German economist and Director of the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC), accused federal economy minister Sigmar Gabriel of bowing to lobby interests in the negotiations about the country’s climate ...
Low carbon prices within the EU have helped coal power plants remain competitive, and put German emissions targets in danger, writes Angela Macdonald-Smith for Australian Financial Times. The “political argy-bargy” surrounding the approval of the ...
Volkswagen is cutting up to 23,000 jobs in conventional areas in Germany in a bid to recover its financial stability and steer its production towards e-mobility, Germany’s largest carmaker announced at a press conference. VW’s “Pact for the Future” is ...
The world climate conference 2017 may be hosted by Germany, the news agency Reuters reports. Delegates at the COP22 in Marrakesh will vote on a proposition to hold the COP23 in the city of Bonn, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s seat, ...
E-cars could overtake cars with conventional engines in market share by 2030, Angela Schmid writes for WirtschaftsWoche, referring to a study by consultancy PwC. “One in three new cars registered in Europe in 2030 could be an e-car,” she writes, compared ...
In a short Q&A for Bloomberg, Weixin Zha explains Germany’s plans to split the common power price zone with its neighbour Austria in July 2018. Zha gives a brief overview of the reasons, motivations, possible consequences and issues surrounding ...
The German and Moroccan governments together with the World Resources Institute (WRI) have initiated a partnership programme to help developing countries create and implement their national climate plans to meet commitments made in Paris last year. “Any ...
Germany is lagging behind other European countries in sales of e-cars, Welt reports. According to a survey by the CAR-Center for Automotive Research at Duisburg University cited by the paper, e-cars and plug-in hybrids had a market share of 0.7 percent ...
BMW wants to boost e-car sales by two-thirds next year to 100,000 vehicles, according to a Reuters report based on a Süddeutsche Zeitung interview with BMW CEO Harald Krüger. The luxury automaker is offering more battery-powered models and expects to ...
Carmakers including VW, BMW and Daimler plan to set up a nationwide fast charging network for electric cars, according to an unsourced report in Bild. The mass daily reports talks between the carmakers and petrol station operator Tank+Rast, aimed at ...
Germany might have to discontinue a central instrument of the Energiewende in light of EU Commission plans to remove priority dispatch for renewable electricity, writes Stefan Schultz for Spiegel Online. In countries where renewables facilities produce a ...
Banning combustion engines in new cars by 2030 and exiting coal-fired power production as early as 2025 are likely to be two key Green Party demands in the general elections in autumn 2017, the party decided at its convention. But controversy over ...
There will be great upheaval in individual economic sectors from decisions made in the latest Climate Action Plan 2050 agreement, writes Andreas Mihm in an opinion piece for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He says that many of the demands that have ...
Scientists expect an average increase in air temperature in the North Sea region of 1.7- 3.2 °C by the end of the century, compared to the period 1971-2000, according to the report “North Sea Region Climate Change Assessment” published by Helmholtz ...
German utility RWE’s green subsidiary innogy reported a 7 percent fall in EBITDA in the first nine months of 2016 compared to the same period last year. The decline in profits comes one month after the company’s stock market debut in October. “The ...
Europe’s largest carmaker VW will build its first factory for battery production in Germany, fulfilling a key employee demand, reports newswire dpa. VW CEO Matthias Müller confirmed the plans but did not want to say how many people will work in the new ...
Social Democratic economy minister Sigmar Gabriel has lost his credibility regarding climate and environment policy with his last-minute decision to block an agreement on Germany’s Climate Action Plan 2050 out of consideration for unions and industry, ...
Germany plans nationwide investments in infrastructure for vehicles powered by electricity, natural gas and fuel cells, the Federal Ministry of Transport (BMVI) said in a press release. “With investments of about one billion euros we will take the lead in ...
BMW’s new model from its e-car “i” sub-brand, which will be able to drive up to 750 kilometres on one charge, will likely hit the market as late as 2021, reports auto motor sport. The range of a basic version will be 550 kilometres and can be upgraded to ...
Mercedes-Benz is launching a sharing platform for private cars of all brands in Munich at the start of December. “Croove is the name of the new app-based service that pairs up private vehicle owners and hirers,” Daimler said in a press release. “By ...
Spinning off its fossil operations into Uniper is costing German utility E.ON dear, reports Jürgen Flauger in business daily Handelsblatt. Because Uniper’s market capitalisation is much lower than the figure on E.ON’s books, the company had to post a net ...
Germany’s largest labour union, IG Metall, has called for “strict but achievable” emission limits which take concerns of the car industry into account, writes Holger Appel in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). Constantly tightened limit values would ...
Experts of the governing Social Democrats (SPD) call for a rapid expansion of railway traffic in Germany, writes Markus Balser in Süddeutsche Zeitung. “We want to achieve a doubling of capacities of the railway network by 2030”, Balser quotes an SPD ...
The takeover of German engineering company Grohmann, a supplier of automated systems for the automotive and other industries, by US e-car pioneer Tesla will be the cornerstone for an automated production site in Germany, writes Lukas Bay in business daily ...
German engineering giant Siemens has rejected criticism from the Green party that it lets private households pay for its electricity bill as “misleading” and “outrightly wrong”, Handelsblatt Online reports. Green MP Bärbel Höhn previously said it was ...
Providers of carsharing services in Germany have called for new legislation that would grant them their own parking sites in crowded inner cities, Max Hägler writes in Süddeutsche Zeitung. Companies operated by carmakers like Car2go (Daimler), DriveNow ...
A group of more than 40 companies has called for 2030-targets for all sectors in a Climate Action Plan 2050 that “clearly signals” the implementation of the commitments made in the Paris Agreement. “This is the only way that new business models and ...
Unions want to push car industry managers to speed up the transition to emission-free mobility, reports weekly magazine Der Spiegel. Powerful metalworkers’ union IG Metall plans to publish a paper on “Cutting CO 2 pollution in individual transport”, write ...
A U.S. regulatory agency has found a new kind of device in Audi vehicles that lowers a car’s carbon dioxide emissions during testing, says Reuters news agency, citing a report by German weekly newspaper Bild am Sonntag. The California Air Resources Board ...
It has been unclear for a long time whether offshore wind turbines can produce power without subsidies, writes Franz Hubik in business daily Handelsblatt. But the industry is about to reach competitiveness, and hopes this will lead to a growth spurt, ...
A new draft of federal environment minister Barbara Hendricks’ contentious Climate Action Plan 2050 says that there would be no new coal-fired power plants or expansions of existing open pit mines, writes Michael Bauchmüller in Süddeutsche Zeitung. “With ...
Volkswagen denies it breached European legislation by installing defeat devices in its vehicles that deliver lower pollutant emissions on a test stand than in regular traffic, write Claus Hulverscheidt, Klaus Ott and Katja Riedel in the Süddeutsche ...
The vigorous debate within the German government about the content of its Climate Action Plan 2050 is in stark contrast to the relative half-heartedness of international climate negotiations, writes Andreas Mihm in an opinion piece for the Frankfurter ...
The German government continues to assume that a planned security standby of lignite plants will result in costs of about 230 million euros over seven years, it said in an answer to a parliamentary inquiry by the Green party. The security standby is also ...
The European Union has initiated infringement proceedings against Germany in 16 cases for failing to correctly implement environmental directives, Dagmar Dehmer writes in the Tagesspiegel. Among the legal issues that could lead to a confrontation between ...
Germany and France jointly defend priority grid access for electricity generated from renewable sources, reports Politico. The European Commission, meanwhile, is considering removing priority dispatch ahead of power coming from fossil fuels. In a so ...
Cabinet approval of environment minister Barbara Hendricks’ Climate Action Plan 2050 before she travels to the COP22 in Marrakesh could be possible after all, reports news agency dpa. Ministry sources told dpa that Chancellor Angela Merkel had signalled ...
Deutsche Welle’s Jens Thurau finds it embarrassing that the German government seems to be unable to approve environment minister Barbara Hendricks’ Climate Action Plan 2050 before the climate conference in Marrakesh. Without Germany as a credible driving ...
Environment minister Barbara Hendricks’ announcement that she did not expect the cabinet to approve her Climate Action Plan 2050 before COP22 in Marrakesh next week “marks the latest embarrassment for a country that once pioneered the fight against global ...
Germany ranks 11 th in business consultancy PwC’s Low Carbon Economy Index 2016 because the country’s carbon intensity fell 1.1 percent in 2015. The Paris Agreement implies that Germany’s carbon intensity must fall 3.1 percent per year between 2015 and ...
Germany needs to be bolder with its Climate Action Plan 2050 to set a benchmark for other countries, former Polish environment minister Maciej Nowicki writes in a guest commentary for Zeit Online. “If the latest known draft is not fundamentally revised, ...
While Chancellor Merkel takes the lead on decarbonisation at international summits, her political group at home foils efforts to reach agreed climate targets, writes Markus Balser in an opinion piece in Süddeutsche Zeitung. “The fourth largest economy in ...
Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks did well not to rush approval for the watered-down climate plan before the COP22, writes Joachim Wille in an opinion piece in Frankfurter Rundschau. “It may be embarrassing to arrive at the summit in Marrakesh empty ...
Following China’s announcement that it will introduce a quota for e-cars as early as 2018, VW has expressed confidence “that the legal framework will comprehend the necessary lead time” for manufacturers to adapt to the regulation, Frankfurter Allgemeine ...
Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks has demanded Chancellor Angela Merkel put down her foot in the dispute over the Climate Action Plan 2050. According to news agency dpa, Hendricks told the Funke Mediengruppe she had discussed her proposals with ...
Trying to micro-manage Germany’s long-term path to decarbonisation with a government climate plan is doomed to fail, because “politics is regularly unable to plan and regulate for decades,” writes Klaus Stratmann in an opinion piece in Handelsblatt. He ...
The German government does not yet have a unified position on the reform of the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) planned for next year, write Till Hoppe and Klaus Stratmann for Handelsblatt. “We must not further embarrass ourselves as the ...
The Chinese government’s announcement to introduce a quota for e-cars from as early as 2018 could mean a great deal of strain for German car makers, write Thomas Fromm and Christoph Giesen in Süddeutsche Zeitung. For example, Volkswagen currently sells ...
German states’ resolution to recommend the phase-out of new combustion engine vehicles at EU level by 2030 was “one of the most brilliant political coups of recent years”, even if it was mainly symbolic, write Sven Böll and Horand Knaup in weekly magazine ...
It doesn’t make economic sense for German carmakers to produce e-car battery cells, according to Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche. “We know today that we can buy them for a fraction of our costs on the international market […] and no-one knows which technology ...
The Bavarian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (BIHK) and the Austrian Economic Chambers (WKÖ) issued a joint statement against a possible split of the German-Austrian power price zone, reports news agency dpa. “These plans endanger supply security in ...
Third-quarter operating profit at the VW brand plunged more than half to 363 million euros, underlinding the need for savings to finance the transition to electric cars, according to a Reuters report. The figure is well below analysts’ forecasts. “The ...
It is increasingly clear that carmakers have become serious about electric mobility as the German car industry reinvents itself, writes Nils-Viktor Sorge in manager magazin. Suppliers and employees focusing on combustion-engine technology face an ...
The Green group in the federal parliament (Bundestag) calls for extending and raising the nuclear fuel tax beyond the end of this year, according to a parliamentary motion. “With the nuclear fuel tax, or nuclear fuel rod tax, we have a target-oriented and ...
VW’s future will be sealed in the coming weeks during negotiations between management and unions about a “future pact” to make the company fit for the pending mobility transformation, writes Carsten Germis in a commentary for Frankfurter Allgemeine ...
Bloomberg highlights some of the ways the individual big German utilities could find the money needed to free themselves of the responsibility for storing nuclear waste. It comes after last week’s federal cabinet decision that sees nuclear power plant ...
German carmaker Daimler plans to invest more than one billion euros in a global battery production compound for its hybrid and electric vehicle fleet. About half the amount will be allotted to the company’s second battery factory to be constructed in the ...
German carmakers have woken up from their slumber in the global race to bring electric cars to market, reports Stefan Theil for Handelsblatt Global Edition. “The contest is finally getting interesting,” writes Theil, referring to Daimler’s and VW’s e-car ...
The years 2021 to 2023 will be a turning point for e-mobility, according to Thomas Sedran, head of strategy at the VW group. “At that point, an electric car will cost the same or even be cheaper than a vehicle with a combustion engine that will stay below ...
High-ranking members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democrats (CDU) want to prevent a commission to plan a coal phase-out in Germany proposed in the environment ministry’s Climate Action Plan 2050, reports Reuters. Michael Fuchs and ...
Swedish utility Vattenfall reaffirmed that it is seeking billions in damages from the German government after a two-week hearing in front of an international arbitration court in Washington, DC, writes Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). Vattenfall ...
The German government bears no responsibility for the diesel emissions scandal, according to federal transport minister Alexander Dobrindt, writes Samuel Morgan for EurActiv. “Volkswagen cheated, so Volkswagen is responsible,” Dobrindt said at a hearing ...
As early as 2007-08, there were suspicions within the federal environment ministry about the possibility of manipulating emissions control systems, but representatives denied knowledge of illegal defeat devices, according to the German federal parliament ...
As more and more electricity suppliers are established and comparison websites recommend changing contracts to save money, traditional utilities need to find new ways to compete in the market, writes Michael Ashelm in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. More ...
More than one year after the start of the VW scandal over illegal emissions manipulations, Europe’s largest carmaker has made slow progress in retrofitting affected cars in Germany, reports Süddeutsche Zeitung. According to the government, the use of the ...
The nuclear waste pact the federal cabinet approved yesterday might be good news for the plant operators, but it sent out the “fatal signal” that Germany’s big four utilities were too large to fail, writes Frank-Thomas Wenzel in an opinion piece in ...
The grand government coalition in Germany failed to recognise that the economy was “the central actor of the new climate movement,” writes German investor Jochen Wermuth in a guest article for German weekly Die Zeit. He calls for more divestment, a hold ...
Germany will likely phase out power production from coal within the next 30 years, according to state secretary Rainer Baake. “When I look at the stakeholders’ positions, it seems to suggest that the last [coal] power station will likely go offline ...
German carmakers’ grand promises on going electric may be more about buying time than a complete shift of focus, writes Jack Stewart in Wired. A big part of the problem is that customers are not clamouring for electrics, while regulators around the world ...
German carmakers are trying to prove they can re-invent the automobile, report Matthew Karnitschnig and Janosch Delcker in Politico. “With strong brands and deep pockets, German car companies argue they are perfectly placed to seize the opportunity to ...
VW’s work council has made an agreement with management on future job cuts conditional on building a battery factory, reports Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “The agreement could fall through. Especially if there is no promise by the company to enter ...
German automotive supplier Continental expects its 2017 profit to be significantly lower than the previous year. The drop is down to “potential expenditure for warranties and pending antitrust proceedings and the aftermath of three earthquakes in Japan as ...
The debate about banning new conventional car registrations in 2030 seems detached from technical obstacles, writes Holger Appel in a commentary for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Appel wonders how 40 million cars in Germany alone could be powered by ...
The German car industry has warned against banning new conventional car registrations in 2030, claiming it would block vital innovations to make combustion engines more efficient, reports Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Major industry suppliers ZF ...
It is sad to see politicians such as transport minister Alexander Dobrindt and Bavarian state premier Horst Seehofer try to protect the car industry against calls for a ban on combustion engines from 2030, writes Annina Reimann in a commentary for ...
The German research centre for biomass (Deutsches Biomasseforschungszentrum, DBFZ) has developed an interactive online atlas to visualise national and regional potentials for biomass in the country. Researchers, investors and interested laypeople can use ...
The Energiewende in Germany is an ambitious political and social project which requires an effective dialogue between all societal actors – political, civil society, economics, science, etc, writes Jonas Kaiser on the HIIG Blog. But a hyperlink network ...
A ban on combustion engines in the EU is likely to do more damage than good toward the goal of reducing emissions while maintaining industrial competitiveness, writes Matthias Wissmann, chairman of the German Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA), ...
German utility E.ON has denied rumours it is considering selling parts of its grid business, the dpa news agency reports. E.ON instead aimed to “successfully implement” its strategy agreed on during the last annual shareholders’ meeting, dpa quoted an E ...
The Dieselgate scandal at VW seems to have triggered a rethinking among German carmakers to place low-emission vehicles higher on their agenda, writes Thorsten Knuf in an opinion piece for the Frankfurter Rundschau. The government instead appears to be ...
VW’s work council believes the switch to electric mobility will lead to the loss of up to 25,000 jobs within ten years, reports Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. But new jobs will be created in areas such as software development and mobility services, Bernd ...
Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche has rejected calls to end new registrations for petrol or diesel cars from 2030, reports Birgit Nicolai in die Welt. Shortly before his speech at the Green party conference, Zetsche said Germany did not need sanctions and ...
Forcing global carmakers based on 130-year-old technology to switch to e-mobility will be complicated and protracted, writes Hannes Koch in a commentary for tageszeitung. He says even the Green party depends on the well-being of large companies for its ...
A reform of the electricity tax along with other measures, such as removing certain industry exemptions, could lead to electricity cost savings of 3.8 billion euros for the retail sector and private consumers, according to a joint position paper by the ...
German transport subsidies worth billions of euros are harmful to the environment, a serious obstacle to the transition to a renewable mobility future, and should be abolished, according to the Federal Environment Agency (UBA). Subsidies for diesel ...
There will be no official ban on combustion engines soon, despite the recent resolution of Germany’s upper house of parliament (Bundesrat) that new cars should be emission-free in the EU by 2030, writes Nikolaus Doll in Die Welt. Transport minister ...
More than a year after the start of the Dieselgate scandal, VW has said it will no longer exploit all legal possibilities to lower the official emission data of cars, report Klaus Ott and Katja Riedel in Süddeutsche Zeitung. The company said it had ...
The continued renewables development in Germany could be realised with only half of the high-voltage direct current power lines currently planned, according to a study by Prognos AG, commissioned by German power supplier N-Ergie. “The currently lagging ...
12 Oct 2016
The Federal Network Agency has announced the first mutually opened auction for ground-mounted photovoltaic installations in cooperation with Denmark. Photovoltaic installations in Denmark can participate in a German auction alongside photovoltaic ...
The government of southern Germany’s state of Baden-Württemberg, home to carmaker Daimler, wants to ban old diesel cars in cities, report Josef Kelnberger und Max Hägler in Süddeutsche Zeitung. Only a “ blue badge ” could reduce nitrogen oxide levels ...
Wind power development in Germany’s windy northern states will be limited to cope with lagging grid expansion, according to a regulation draft by the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA), seen by Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ). Mecklenburg Western-Pomerania, ...
Germany’s transport minister Alexander Dobrindt has dismissed a Green Party proposal to ban new registrations of fossil-fuel powered cars in 2030, reports Berlin daily Tagesspiegel. “A complete end to combustion engines from 2030 is totally unrealistic,” ...
Germany’s Federal Environment Agency (UBA) suggests a binding quota of e-car sales for car manufacturers to ensure the transport sector contributes to climate protection. “German carmakers do not want to leave the combustion engine. In the short term, ...
The negotiations between the federal government and Germany’s nuclear power plant operating utilities about the clean-up costs are coming to a close, writes Andreas Mihm in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The utilities “would only be responsible for ...
Hearings begin in Washington this week in the “heated court case” of Swedish utility Vattenfall suing Germany for almost 4.7 billion euros at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID), write Michael Bauchmüller and Claus ...
Diesel cars’ share of new vehicle registrations in Germany fell below 45 percent in September to reach the lowest level in five years, reports Sebastian Viehmann for Focus Online. Car expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, director of the Center for Automotive ...
Operators of pumped hydro power plants warn a planned law will increase operating costs to the point where the stations will have to be closed, reports Andreas Mihm in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The government cabinet will vote on Wednesday to ...
A German exit from coal-fired power generation “must really happen very, very fast – maybe by 2025, 2030” if the country wants to be a pioneer in international climate protection, Niklas Höhne of think tank NewClimate Institute said in an interview with ...
The stock market launch of innogy could make RWE’s green subsidiary Germany’s most valuable utility, writes Antje Höning in Rheinische Post. If the stock price of 36 euros- determined by auction- remains unchanged, innogy will be worth around 20 billion ...
From 2019 on, Volkswagen (VW) will use two liquefied natural gas (LNG)-fuelled charter vessels for vehicle shipments between Europe and North America “to significantly improve the environmental balance of its marine transport fleet”, the company announced ...
China is placing a radical bet on e-mobility by tabling a proposal to drastically increase e-car sales and ensuring a high share of those vehicles will be made by Chinese auto manufacturers, report Markus Fasse, Stefan Menzel and Stephan Scheuer in ...
To counter ambitious plans from rivals VW and Daimler unveiled at the Paris Car Show last week, BMW is stepping up its electric mobility plans, reports Elisabeth Behrmann for Bloomberg. BMW will offer the first battery-powered model of its Mini brand from ...
“Power duel on a level playing field” General Motor’s German subsidiary Opel fell behind its traditional rival VW in recent years, but on electric mobility, the two will face each other on a level playing field, writes Peter Maahn in Zeit Online. VW’s e ...
Divesting the capital of German foundations – about 100 billion euros in total – from fossil fuels would send a “strong and effective signal to the capital markets” and to the government to implement the Paris Agreement, writes Matthias Fiedler in ...
German innovators have come up with an award-winning idea for a cooling system using water instead of environmentally harmful coolants, writes Katrin Terpitz in Handelsblatt Global Edition. “What’s innovative is the cooling agent – tap water that is ...
A motion by the Green Party’s executive for the November party conference demands that from 2030, no newly registered cars should be diesel or petrol-fuelled, Andreas Mihm reports in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Such a transport transition would also ...
The Green Party seems to have “learned nothing new” and is living up to its image of “the prohibition party”, writes Silke Kersting in an opinion piece in Handelsblatt about the party’s proposal to ban diesel and petrol engines for newly-registered cars ...
The world’s first four-seat passenger aircraft powered solely by a hydrogen fuel cell system took off on its first official flight from Stuttgart Airport, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) announced in a press release. The HY4 flies without generating any ...
Utilities and the German government continue to argue about the storage of nuclear waste, five months after a government-appointed commission proposed that the country’s four nuclear power station operators should pay more than 20 billion euros into a ...
New legislation regarding the search for a final repository for highly radioactive waste could be drafted, decided and implemented “clearly” before next year’s summer break, said a representative of the federal environment ministry, according to a press ...
European wind power companies are in danger of being overrun by competitors from Asia – as was the case with the solar industry, writes Franz Hubik in an opinion piece in Handelsblatt. Research and development (R&D) efforts become more important as ...
European governments’ efforts to re-design support schemes for wind power – such as Germany’s switch from set feed-in tariffs to tenders – are “driving a rush to the market” by companies hoping to benefit from the old systems, according to a study by ...
The Paris Car show offers the opportunity to observe the creeping death of the diesel engine, write Thomas Fromm and Leo Klimm in Süddeutsche Zeitung. Carmakers are suddenly in a hurry to roll out e-cars, as the share of diesel sales decreases in Germany ...
The government cabinet approved the second phase of a programme to support hydrogen and fuel cell technology, according to a transport ministry press release. From 2016 to 2019, the programme provides almost 250 million euros to support innovations in ...
Several municipal shareholders of utility RWE – among them Dortmund and Essen – will not invest in the company’s renewable subsidiary innogy at the time of its initial public offering (IPO), according to news agency Reuters. “As a provider of jobs in the ...
Germany’s grid expansion is only slowly progressing, according to a report by the federal economy ministry. About half of the 22 most crucial high voltage grid projects – determined by the German Power Grid Expansion Act – are approved, but only 650 of ...
The populism by the Christian Social Union in Bavaria has delayed the grid expansion by years and increased costs by billions of euros, writes Andreas Mihm in an opinion piece for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He says that the Bavarian government had ...
Raising grid fees substantially- and the resulting rise in cost for electricity in Germany announced for the turn of the year – is not fully justified, Claudia Kemfert of the German Institute of Economic Research (DIW Berlin), told Frankfurter Rundschau. ...
A new OECD study comparing tax regimes and emissions trading systems in different countries reveals that CO 2 emissions are particularly expensive in Germany, reports Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Almost half of emissions in Germany cost 30 euros or ...
The dispute within Germany’s federal government over environment minister Barbara Hendricks’ Climate Action Plan 2050 “is becoming increasingly uncomfortable for Chancellor Angela Merkel,” writes Michael Bauchmüller in Süddeutsche Zeitung. “At the next UN ...
The “spectacular growth” of the wind power sector over recent years looks unlikely to continue, because of new policy frameworks such as reduced state support for renewables, as well as public opposition and slow grid expansion, writes Franz Hubik in ...
The federal economy ministry has made changes to the reform of the combined heat and power (CHP) law, after last month’s agreement with the EU Commission on state aid questions. The changes include the introduction of tenders for governmental support for ...
Planned power lines to link renewable production in windy north-eastern Germany to demand in the country’s industrial south are likely to cost three times the 4 billion euros originally projected, writes Christian Sebald in Süddeutsche Zeitung. Public ...
The group of Christian Democrats and Christian Socials in the federal parliament (Bundestag) has criticised environment minister Barbara Hendricks’ Climate Action Plan 2050, writes Andreas Mihm in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Hendricks had bet “one ...
The massive increase in grid fees announced by TenneT and other operators signals a new chapter in Germany’s Energiewende, writes Daniel Wetzel in Die Welt. “A new phase begins whereby capacity growth no longer takes centre stage, but the system ...
Next year’s power price increase is not the fault of wind and solar power generation operators, writes Olaf Ridder in a commentary for Frankfurter Rundschau. The rise is the price consumers have to pay for the delay in grid extensions, one of many ...
German utility RWE and its subsidiary innogy have determined the price range for shares of innogy SE in the Initial Public Offering (IPO) to range from 32 euros to 36 euros. Innogy would be valued between 17.8 billion and 20 billion euros and RWE will ...
Vattenfall started operation of a battery storage with its pilot project “Battery 2 nd Life” in Hamburg. The storage is made up of 2,600 used battery modules from more than 100 electric vehicles. It has a power capacity of 2 megawatts and a storage ...
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney urged Germany to use its G20 presidency in 2017 to make progress concerning green financing in emerging economies. "The upcoming German presidency of the G20 now has a historic chance to mainstream climate finance ...
German households will have to pay 30 euros more per year for electricity as grid operator TenneT plans to raise its grid fees by 80 percent in the new year, writes Klaus Stratmann in Handelsblatt. “The main reason for this increase is that the grid ...
Utility Vattenfall wants to sell its Hamburg coal power plant Moorburg, according to a report by daily tageszeitung. Vattenfall CEO Magnus Hall did not rule out a sale within five years, as the company did not need Moorburg in the long term. A Vattenfall ...
German Internet services company United Internet will become an electricity provider, writes Varinia Bernau in Süddeutsche Zeitung. The company will not operate its own power plants, but buy electricity on the market to sell and distribute to its ...
The boom years for wind power in Germany are over, but the market will stay stable over the coming years, according to Commerzbank. While globally the growth will largely shift to the Asian market, Germany’s market growth- which was at around 9 percent in ...
A coalition of German industry associations, together with the federal economy ministry (BMWi), is demanding changes in the European Commission’s plans to reform the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS). The group wants to “find the balance between the two ...
Low prices of Chinese products, the reform of the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), as well as levies connected to the Energiewende in Germany, all put a heavy burden on the German steel industry, writes Ulrich Grillo, president of the Federation of ...
Federal transport minister Alexander Dobrindt “unexpectedly” plans to invest an additional 2.4 billion euros in German rail company Deutsche Bahn (DB) over the next four years, writes Thomas Öchsner in Süddeutsche Zeitung. “It is my goal to further ...
Electric drives for commercial vehicles in city traffic will become profitable in a few years, said Wolfgang Bernhard, member of the Board of Management of Daimler AG, according to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). “In 2020, cell prices and the ...
Germany is making haste in ratifying the Paris Climate Agreement partly over fears that Donald Trump will pull out of the deal before it comes into force if he becomes US president, writes Michael Bauchmüller in Süddeutsche Zeitung. “Time is pressing, and ...
Petrol stations have to “radically change” to cope with the transition to a more efficient and possibly largely electric transport system, write Franz Hubik and Regine Palm in Handelsblatt. Petrol stations could become mobility stations offering cars, ...
A majority of Germans (53 percent) think their country should do more to remain a pioneer in climate protection, according to a YouGov survey commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The representative survey with 2105 participants was carried out ...
Several large business associations criticised Barbara Hendricks’ climate plan draft and that its coordination lies primarily with the environment ministry. “Because of its scope in many policy areas, the Climate Protection Plan 2050 must not be ...
There is a “creeping revolution” causing financial market actors to re-think their approaches, incorporating climate protection and sustainability as profitable investment strategies, write Green politicians Reinhard Bütikofer and Anton Hofreiter in a ...
Service sector trade union ver.di’s has said that a fair coal exit in Germany is possible and can be financed, a statement that could alter the course of the current discussion among Social Democrats, writes Frank-Thomas Wenzel in an opinion piece in ...
The British government’s decision to approve the nuclear power plant Hinkley Point is a step “forward into the past,” despite the “laudable” goal to reduce carbon emissions, writes Björn Finke in an opinion piece for the Süddeutsche Zeitung. However, ...
The German government could lose 3.9-5.8 billion euros in taxes by 2022, if the nuclear fuel rod tax is not extended beyond the end of this year, according to an analysis by NGO Green Budget Germany, commissioned by green power supplier NATURSTROM. ...
VW management have announced plans to reduce the number of employees, according to media reports. "We are facing a tough fitness programme," VW human resources chief Karlheinz Blessing said at a staff meeting, according to a Reuters report. ...
Drivers of cars powered by natural gas and operators of gas refilling stations should be careful after the recent explosion of a VW vehicle of this type, writes Christian Siedenbiedel in a commentary for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. It is too early to ...
A majority of German companies participating in the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) do not expect the Paris Agreement to be effective in reducing global emissions, according to a survey by the German development bank KfW and Centre for European Economic ...
Germany’s major utilities and hundreds of municipal utilities have missed the advance of renewables, writes Franz Hubik in Handelsblatt. Many firms now say they want to change course but do not have the necessary financial resources for a turnaround. ...
German municipal utilities that have invested in fossil fuels over the past years – for example by modernising old coal-fired power plants – now find themselves under financial pressure in part due to the Energiewende, writes Bastian Brandau for ...
Power producer STEAG’s threat to cut up to 1,000 jobs in fossil power generation shows Germany has entered election campaign mode, writes Frank-Thomas Wenzel in a commentary in Frankfurter Rundschau. The industry’s job-cut threats are at least partially ...
Bavarian storage manufacturer sonnen will offer a free power flat rate to consumers that install the company’s integrated solar PV and home storage systems, sonnen announced in a press release. The flat rates will be financed with revenues the company ...
E.ON fossil-fuel spin-off Uniper’s IPO revealed the difficult situation both companies face in the near future, writes Helmut Bünder in an opinion piece for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “The first day of trading became the day of truth. The market ...
In light of fluctuating supply and congestions in the power grid, the wind power sector has to increase its focus on surrounding infrastructure and technology, such as storage, smart grids and data streams, to cope with the challenges of the Energiewende, ...
German transport minister Alexander Dobrindt has suggested communes should ban the use of diesel cars when nitrogen oxide levels are high, report Michail Hengstenberg and Gerald Traufetter in Spiegel Online. In a reply to a question by the Green party, ...
E.ON subsidiary Uniper will debut on the stock exchange on 12 September and analysts say the share may see some ups and downs, due to pressures on the utility’s coal, gas and hydro power business, according to an article in Wirtschaftswoche. The share ...
The Integrated Environment Programme 2030 environment minister Barbara Hendricks published yesterday reads in part like her political legacy and in part like a self-confident settling of accounts with some of her cabinet colleagues, writes Thorsten Knuf ...
The market for e-cars is growing much slower in Germany than in other countries like China, according to a study by Center of Automotive Management (CAM), writes Focus Online. In the first eight months of 2016, China sold 240,000 new e-cars, 123 percent ...
Already densely populated by windmills, and with more in the pipeline, some districts in northern Germany are pushing back against wind power investors and laws, writes Angela Schmid in WirtschaftsWoche. Municipal politicians in Schleswig-Holstein are ...
Chancellor Angela Merkel and economy minister Sigmar Gabriel act “cowardly and economically short-sighted” when erasing any mention of a coal exit in Germany from environment minister Barbara Hendricks’ climate plan, writes Thorsten Knuf in an opinion ...
Germany’s Energiewende is on track in areas such as extending renewables, employment, and securing power supply. But other goals- such as reducing power consumption and carbon emissions, and the limit on costs- seem increasingly out of reach, consultancy ...
Governments around the world have committed to the “historic” Paris Climate Agreement – and now it is time for businesses to follow suit, writes Rüdiger Grube, chairman of the board of Deutsche Bahn (DB) in a guest commentary in Handelsblatt. German rail ...
The German Federal Parliament’s committee of inquiry on what the federal government knew about the car emissions scandal will have its first hearings today, writes Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). The Green and the Left groups in the Bundestag ...
Germany’s largest carmaker Volkswagen (VW) plans to team up with China’s Anhui Jianghuai Automobile (JAC) on an electric car joint venture, news agency Bloomberg and other media report. VW said in a statement that its “top priority will be to develop zero ...
Volkswagen is late in entering the Chinese market for e-cars and should quickly agree to producing electric vehicles with Anhui Jianghuai Automobile (JAC), writes Stephan Scheuer in a commentary for German business daily Handelsblatt. The company’s ...
The scandal about emissions from diesel cars has had no noticeable impact on diesel sales at Daimler, the head the German carmaker, Dieter Zetsche, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “Eleven months after the VW case became public, the share of ...
The current draft of the environment ministry’s Climate Action Plan 2050 showed that Chancellor Angela Merkel – weakened by the refugee crisis – avoided a dispute over climate targets with the economic wing of her party, writes Bernhard Pötter in an ...
The targets of the Paris Climate Agreement can only be reached with the help of the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology, writes Daniel Wetzel in Die Welt. The 1.5° target was “ambitious to such an extent that it cannot be attained without huge ...
German grid operator 50Hertz is installing phase shifters to stop excess electricity from spilling over into neighbouring countries like Poland, writes Andreas Mihm in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Electricity current normally takes the path of least ...
Several German bicycle associations are demanding a buyer’s premium for new electric bicycles, akin to the premium the federal government introduced for e-cars earlier this year, writes Philipp Vetter in Die Welt. Critics argue that such support does not ...
China and the USA have ratified the climate treaty but not much has happened in Germany, writes Petra Pinzler in a commentary for Zeit Online. There is no doubt that Germany and its European neighbours will eventually follow suit, but it seems ...
Even though the government put plans to enable diesel bans in German cities on ice last month, experts believe diesel engines are doomed, reports Henning Peitsmeier in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Elmar Kades, director at business consultancy Alix ...
A joint venture of BMW, Bosch, Daimler, EnBW, RWE and Siemens wants to enable e-car drivers to charge their vehicles using only renewable power at more than half of Germany’s e-car charging stations, reports business magazine Wirtschaftswoche. Their ...
Future prospects for the German solar sector are “rather good”, according to almost two thirds of business and research experts surveyed by R&D for Photovoltaics, a research initiative financed by the economy (BMWi) and education (BMBF) ministries. 62 ...
Grid operators such as utilities are protesting plans by the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) to lower grid fees by decreasing the return on equity operators invest in Germany’s grid infrastructure, write Jürgen Flauger and Klaus Stratmann in the ...
The Group of Twenty (G20) is “beginning to head in the right direction” towards a low-carbon economy but needs to step up its efforts to meet the Paris Agreement’s temperature goals, according to a report by Climate Transparency, the international ...
Representatives of industry, civil society and science call for an internationally coordinated price system for CO₂ emissions in a guest commentary in Die Zeit. The Federation of German Industries (BDI), environmental NGO Germanwatch and the Mercator ...
German car supplier Bosch has developed a technology to save cars’ petrol consumption by injecting water into combustion engines, reports Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The “water boost” technology reduces fuel consumption by at least four percent, and ...
Despite their massive size, offshore wind farms only contribute 1.3 percent to Germany’s power supply because they are expensive and grid connections are problematic, writes Jürgen Döschner in a commentary for public regional broadcaster Radio Bremen. ...
German automaker VW will not start its own e-car battery cell production because the company believes it would be too expensive. “That would be a joke,” said VW CEO Matthias Müller after months of speculation on the issue, according to German news agency ...
The “well-meant experiment” to protect the climate by using biofuels in Germany and other EU countries has failed, writes Silvia Liebrich in an opinion piece in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “There is no reason to continue to cling to blending quotas, as long ...
New emissions tests for cars still leave room for the “trickery of the manufacturers”, according to expert reports for the German lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, seen by the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “The biggest defect: the tests on how much CO₂ ...
German company NEMOS will construct the prototype of a power plant that uses wind and wave power to generate electricity, writes Wolfgang Kempkens in WirtschaftsWoche. The company connects a floating unit with a generator attached to a regular wind ...
A worldwide coal exit will be difficult as coal remains the easiest and often cheapest source of base power and many jobs still depend on the fossil fuel, writes Eduardo Porter in a column in New York Times. In Germany, “only about 63,000 jobs are ...
The federal government is “increasingly without ambition” regarding concrete steps to fight global warming – with the exception of environment minister Barbara Hendricks – writes Silke Kerstig in an opinion piece for Handelsblatt. Hendricks so far is ...
The Association of German Cities warns of driving bans in inner cities if nothing is done about the air pollution caused by diesel vehicles, writes Kerstin Schwenn in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). “The targets of the UN climate conference in ...
At more than 40 percent, the lion’s share of the roughly 1.8 million tonnes of palm oil consumed in Germany is used for diesel fuel, according to a study by WWF Germany. “To solve the palm oil problem, one would need to improve cultivation conditions and ...
30 Aug 2016
The leaders of the leading industrialised and emerging economies will discuss ways to funnel capital into financing climate measures at the G20 summit in Hangzhou, China, on Sept. 4 and 5, a German government official said on Tuesday. The Chinese ...
Germany’s big four utilities want greater security and clarity on costs they will incur from the nuclear phase-out, and are proposing detailed contracts with the government, writes Angela Hennersdorf in Wirtschaftswoche. The contracts would establish how ...
In an interview with Gitta Düperthal, Manfred Maresch, head of the district German mining union in the lignite coal town of Alsdorf, says the union is not against the Energiewende. Instead, he says, it is concerned about the social implications of ...
Germany is reconsidering its position on underground CO2 reservoirs, in order to help reach emissions reduction targets agreed in the Paris climate agreement, writes Daniel Wetzel in Die Welt, citing the latest version of the Climate Action Plan 2050, ...
Power lines to carry wind power from Germany’s north to its industrial south have been delayed over and over, creating problems for the Energiewende, writes Klaus Stratmann in the Handelsblatt. The current power network is reaching its limits in dealing ...
In an interview with the Handelsblatt, the head of power network operator Tennet, Lex Hartmann, says that the company will invest 22 billion euros in the next 10 years, with the lion’s share in network expansion in Germany. Regulatory hurdles for ...
Despite the lacklustre success of the buyers’ premium for e-cars in Germany, delivery times for electric vehicles remain long, reports Thomas Imhof in Die Welt. Buyers of the global best-seller Nissan Leaf had to wait up to six months until recently, the ...
Engineers at the Technical University in Braunschweig have developed a wireless charging system for e-cars, Wirtschaftswoche reports. A trial involving taxis will test the technology for “inductive charging” next month. The technology is already used by ...
The European Commission is calling on the German government to change aspects of its support scheme for combined heat and power (CHP) facilities to an auction-based system, writes Andreas Mihm in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In the future, support for ...
A regulation by the Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies (VDE) keeps German tenants from using power from small personal solar panels on their balconies for self-consumption, while other countries allow the use, writes ...
German gas company Thyssengas is planning a new pipeline that would connect its grid with the proposed Russian project Nord Stream 2- even while the latter is strongly disputed, writes Jürgen Flauger in Handelsblatt. The company argues that gas supplies ...
The economic council of the German Christian Democrats (CDU) criticises environment minister Barbara Hendricks’ (Social Democrats) Climate Action Plan 2050 as a “horror catalogue for the economy”, writes Klaus Stratmann for Handelsblatt. In a position ...
The federal government “shows an alarming despondency” when it comes to its policy on a coal phase-out, writes Thorsten Knuf in an opinion piece for Frankfurter Rundschau. “Clear decisions about a long-term exit would be in the interest of the relevant ...
The German commercial and industrial, as well as utility-scale storage markets, are surprisingly weak compared to the booming residential storage market, writes Julian Spector for Greentech Media. The weakness comes “in part because of its regionally ...
Expressways for bicycles are an important contribution to solve current transport problems, according to environment minister Barbara Hendricks. “Every other car ride is shorter than five kilometres. High speed cycle tracks can persuade many commuters to ...
Out of 650 megawatts of ground-mounted photovoltaic projects tendered since 2015, 100 megawatts have so far been realised, pv magazine writes. After obtaining detailed information on Germany’s pilot PV auctions from the Federal Network Agency (BnetzA), ...
The lack of flexibility in conventional power plants is a “key problem of the Energiewende”, writes Jakob Schlandt in Hamburger Abendblatt. While conventional plants continue to run at times of grid congestion, “whole wind parks are being switched off ...
22 Aug 2016
In a long article in Welt am Sonntag, Daniel Wetzel writes about the dangers of wind turbines for birds and the resulting clash between nature and climate protection advocates. A wind power project in the south of Germany could set a legal precedence: ...
German economics minister Sigmar Gabriel’s controversial proposal of placing a flexible tax on fuel that would rise and fall according to oil prices is a good idea and it should not be abandoned despite the loud opposition to it, Mark Schieritz writes in ...
Utility company E.ON and Norwegian Statoil have started construction work on their new offshore wind project near the island of Rügen in the German Baltic Sea. Wind turbine installations will begin in 2017. Once completed in 2019, the wind farm with 60 ...
When power prices linger below zero for six hours or more, wind turbines larger than 3 megawatts in capacity don’t receive any remuneration. This could become a problem for wind farm operators when more hours with negative prices occur after a possible ...
Deutsche Post DHL Group is aiming to have 2,000 new electric delivery vans on the streets in Germany by the end of the year, Hans-Christoph Neidlein writes in PV Europe. Deutsche Post DHL already has 1,000 electric vans, known as StreetScooters, in ...
The diesel engine has been damaged by the emissions scandal and it will reach the end of its development capability in about a decade, but German automakers must nevertheless make diesel acceptable again, Henrik Mortsiefer writes in Der Tagesspiegel. New ...
The costs of the VW diesel emissions scandal keep on rising with a never-ending succession of new court cases in the US and Europe, writes Carsten Germis in a commentary for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The new VW CEO Matthias Müller wants to transform ...
Half of Germany’s large enterprises (annual turnover of more than 500 million euros) made foreign investments of an average 125 million euros in 2014, the Foreign Investment Monitor by development bank KfW shows. Investment at home was at an average 135 ...
While German automakers are eager to invest billions in electric vehicle production, the deployment of charging stations is lagging, Jürgen Flauger and Daniel Delhaes write in Handelsblatt. The carmakers are hurrying to catch up to U.S. rival Tesla Motors ...
Increased pricing pressure has forced leading German solar inverter manufacturer SMA Solar Technology to drastically cut costs, Franz Hubik writes in Handelsblatt. The publicly listed company is shutting down its second biggest manufacturing plant, ...
In an interview with Zeit Online’s Matthias Breitinger, Peter Mock, Europe managing director of the International Council on Clean Transportation (ICCT), says European authorities have been more restrained than their counterparts in the United States when ...
A BMW TV spot airing on U.S. television pokes fun at electric vehicle maker Tesla and its ongoing problems while promoting its own e-car, Sebastian Viehmann writes in Focus Online. Tesla is facing technical difficulties with its autopilot feature, ...
German utility company E.ON has launched a new onshore wind park in the United States (Texas) with an installed capacity of 200 megawatts. The 112 turbines at Colbeck’s Corner can produce electricity for 64,000 households, the company said in a press ...
Germany’s recently introduced electric vehicle subsidy programme, which went into effect 18 May has so far turned out to be a flop, according to experts, Karl-Heinz Büschemann writes in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Financed by the government and the German ...
Natural gas is at its lowest price since 2010 at an average of 1,236 euros per 20,000 kilowatt hours (kWh), comparison portal CHECK24 reports. This was because of competition and the offers of alternative suppliers to the traditional utilities, writes ...
Several automakers claimed lower carbon dioxide emissions for new cars than was actually the case, according to a 2011 study by the Federal Highway Research Institute (Bast), writes Handelsblatt Global Edition. For six models included in the study, CO 2 ...
Prices for solar PV installations have gone down again in the latest round of tenders in Germany, the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) said. Twenty-five bids for a total of 130 megawatt auctioned capacity were successful in the fifth round – all of them ...
While global hard coal production fell by 3 percent in 2015, Germany’s imports rose by 2 percent to 57.5 million tons compared to 2014, according to German Coal Importer Association (VDKi), writes Dow Jones Newswires. The reduction was not a sign of “a ...
With a new sub-brand, Mercedes-Benz is planning its own line of electric vehicles, write Elisabeth Behrmann and Christoph Rauwald for Bloomberg Technology. The German carmaker will challenge BMW and Tesla Motors Inc. with two sport utility vehicles and ...
The costs for so called re-dispatch measures, necessary to keep the power grid stable in times of high power input and lacking grid capacities, have increased to 402.5 million euros in 2015 compared to 185.4 million euros in 2014, the Federal Network ...
The new Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 2030 contributes little to solving environmental problems, writes Dagmar Dehmer in an opinion piece for Der Tagesspiegel. “Not using the federal transport infrastructure plan as an element of a climate concept ...
German utility E.ON and its fossil fuel spin-off Uniper will write-off several billion euros after Uniper’s IPO planned for September, writes Jürgen Flauger in Handelsblatt, citing company sources. This was because of unrealistically high projections for ...
Swedish state owned utility Vattenfall’s sale of its German lignite coal operations is facing a new delay, writes Jürgen Flauger in the Handelsblatt. The necessary approval by the European Commission was pending and will probably not be ready before ...
Increasing the efficiency is key to exploiting the cost reduction potential of solar PV facilities, say 58 percent of research and development experts from solar companies surveyed by the German Solar Industry Association (BSW). The improvement of quality ...
If petrol prices were increased by one euro per litre, private households would use their bikes 14.4 percent more – but only in urban centres, a study by RWI researchers has found. The rise in petrol prices in more rural areas would have no significant ...
Despite opposition for geostrategic, budgetary, economic and environmental reasons, the EU should go ahead with the Baltic natural gas pipeline project with Russia ‘Nord Stream 2’, writes Andreas Mihm in an opinion piece for FAZ. Imposing a construction ...
The cabinet of the government today passed the Transport Infrastructure Plan 2030 with a total volume of 269.6 billion euros. The largest part of 132.8 billion euros are marked for Germany’s roads, 112.3 billion euros for rail transport and 24.5 billion ...
Several German municipalities reject the idea that non-highly radioactive waste from decommissioned nuclear power plants is stored at their local landfills over radiation fears, write Michael Bauchmüller and Thomas Hahn in Süddeutsche Zeitung. Most of the ...
Grid operator TenneT has paid 295 million euros in contingency payments to wind power operators in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein in 2015 because their electricity could not be transported through congested grids, Olaf Preuß writes in Die ...
June was the strongest month so far in 2016 for solar PV expansion, with 119.4 megawatt additional installed capacity reported to the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA), writes pv magazine. Of the total, 90.5 megawatt were from small solar PV facilities, ...
The copper industry is profiting from the Energiewende and the rise of renewables, reports German broadcaster MDR. The metal is an ideal electric conductor and used heavily in wind turbines. “Whether it’s solar cells, electric cars or power lines, nothing ...
Facilities generating electricity from sewage gas have produced 1,395 gigawatt-hours of power in Germany in 2015, the federal statistics office Destatis reports. This was 3.6 percent more than in 2014, and enough to supply a large city like Frankfurt am ...
German utility RWE, coal mining corporation RAG AG and HeidelbergCement are among 47 major global CO2-emitters the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHR) accuses of breaching people’s fundamental rights to “life, food, water, sanitation, ...
Germany boasts the best framework conditions (e.g. financing) and with 41.5 gigawatt has the biggest onshore wind power capacity in Europe, but the industry has not achieved considerable price cuts compared to other European countries, writes Christian ...
Several states have created their own environmental regulations because they are dissatisfied with federal laws and plans, writes Angela Schmid in WirtschaftsWoche. “The federal government’s lip service in Paris doesn’t do anything for the world climate. ...
German car manufacturer Daimler has presented its first prototype for an electric transporter. The 26-tonne truck will have a range of 200 km on one battery charge and is envisaged to be used to transport goods into city centers. Daimler wants to start ...
People need cars for different purposes but they do not necessarily need to own them, says Christian Hochfeld, director of think tank Agora Verkehrswende in an interview with the taz. The future could bring a kind of “mobility pass” that would allow ...
Environment organisations are disappointed with the government’s proposal for a German sustainability strategy 2016 because targets for a higher market share of climate friendly rail transport have been deleted, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. ...
French multinational oil company Total is looking to expand its network of petrol stations in Germany, Handelsblatt Global Edition reports. “This might not seem like a business with a bright future given the government’s decision to phase out fossil fuels ...
German utility EnBW is reducing the price for natural gas from 1 October because of low wholesale prices- despite rising grid fees, according to a press release. The company also said that it would not raise the cost for the basic supply until April 2018. ...
German sports cars manufacturer Porsche AG plans to recruit more than 1,400 new employees in the Stuttgart region to develop and produce the ‘Mission E’, the company’s first all-electric sports car. "We are in direct competition with other automakers ...
Europe’s solar industry should think about cooperating with China instead of placing import tariffs on Chinese PV products, writes Stephan Scheuer in an op-ed for Handelsblatt. The tariffs disadvantage consumers in Europe and slow down the solar expansion ...
A giant sailing vessel could become a new means of transport for car exports from Germany to America and Asia, reports Birger Nicolai in Die Welt. VW, Daimler and BMW are all looking into the possibility to get a contract for the 180 m long “Ecoliner” ...
With cities, municipalities, foundations and companies divesting from fossil fuels and more “green investment” possibilities, the financial sector is rethinking its approach to environmental protection and sustainability on the one hand, and to financial ...
Angela Merkel’s chancellery officials have "shredded" the formerly ambitious Climate Action Plan 2050 proposal by environment minister Barbara Hendricks, Der Spiegel reports. The chancellery, which was to evaluate the draft over the summer, has ...
German farmers oppose environment minister Barbara Hendricks’ Climate Action Plan 2050 because it suggests reducing the number of cattle, the use of fertiliser and tying EU subsidies to environmental performance, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports ...
The EU Commission missed its opportunity to introduce more ambitious climate targets with its proposal package for a low-carbon economy, writes Joachim Wille in an opinion piece in Frankfurter Rundschau. “The EU Commission pretends […] that ‘Paris’ never ...
Swedish utility Vattenfall, which operates many conventional power plants in Germany and is selling its German lignite operations to Czech investor EPH, has published its half-year 2016 figures. It says that challenging market conditions forced it to make ...
PV magazine “Own consumption after feed-in payments run out will stimulate storage market” More than half of solar PV installation operators in Germany want to use their generated power themselves once their 20-year feed-in remuneration runs out, a study ...
Germany is far behind in sales of electric vehicles compared to its neighbours and countries around the world, Die Welt reports. While new registrations for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids in Germany made up just 0.6 percent in the first half of ...
Apple and Google are becoming a growing threat for German automakers, Stefan Menzel writes in Handelsblatt. “There is a fear that automakers could end up the fifth wheel of the car,” says auto expert Stefan Bratzel of the Center of Automotive Management, ...
Revenue from goods and services in Germany’s solar industry has been declining steadily in recent years, falling by 74.2 percent in 2014 compared to 2011, according to the German statistics office, Destatis. Revenue in 2014 was 3.7 billion euros, compared ...
In the first quarter of 2016, there wasn’t a single application to build a wind turbine in Bavaria, the Bavarian government has said, and the same goes for the second quarter, according to information obtained by the website energyload.eu. This comes ...
The battery maker BMZ is massively expanding production in Germany, writes energyload.eu. The high-tech company will build four new production and warehouse facilities on its 55,000-square metre site in Karlstein-Grosswelzheim, the website says. The ...
Despite looming debt and the heavy financial burden from the nuclear clean-up, the CEO of electricity utility RWE, Peter Terium, told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung that the company is on solid financial ground. “We have many billions of euros ...
The four German transmission grid operators and Austrian grid operator APG have agreed to cooperate on secondary balancing power. The aim is for grid operators to work more closely to shape a harmonised European market for secondary balancing power. By ...
Czech investor EPH has announced plans to move “several hundred” administrative jobs to the city of Cottbus in Lusatia- one of Germany’s lignite mining and power production regions- once the acquisition of Vattenfall’s German lignite plants and mines is ...
When it comes to climate protection, there is hardly any other sector where reality lags as far behind necessity as in the area of insulating buildings, according to the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW). In a collection of analyses, the ...
Petrol station operators should realise the transition to e-mobility is a huge business opportunity rather than a threat, according to e-car website Ecario. E-car drivers waiting for their cars to charge will spend much more time on the premises, and are ...
Many producers showcased their storage devices at the Intersolar Europe trade fair in Munich. Jonathan Gifford, pv magazine global editor, and Götz Fischbeck, CEO of company Smart Solar Consulting, visited the exhibits and conducted a series of interviews ...
The cabinet decision on a new law to regulate the financing of nuclear decommissioning and waste storage will be postponed until the end of August, writes WirtschaftsWoche. According to the unsourced report, utility RWE said it would not be able to ...
The approval of the sale of Vattenfall’s German lignite plants and mines to Czech utility EPH showed that Germany and Sweden were not willing to implement the Paris Climate Agreement, says Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience ...
Researchers at BioConsult SH, ARSU, IfAÖ and University of Bielefeld have published a study on the effects of wind turbines on birds and how to lower the risk of collision. The question of whether protected bird species are threatened by wind turbines is ...
The Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (BAFA) has received 718 applications for the e-car buyer’s premium since the official launch on 2 July, according to a press release. The most popular models were BMW’s i3 (127 applications) and ...
Researchers at Aachen University have developed a small electric car go on the market for 12,500 euros from 2018, reports Wolfgang Kempkens for Wirtschaftswoche. The same team was responsible for the development of the Streetscooter now used by Deutsche ...
The transport ministry has instructed a commission to determine ethical principles for driverless cars, according to a report in Süddeutsche Zeitung. Transport minister Alexander Dobrindt told mass daily Bild two of the fundamental ideas guiding the work ...
A pilot study suggests wind turbines attract bats, reports science news service idw. “They seem to appear particularly appealing to female noctule bats in early summer,” the report says. A researcher said the bats might mistake turbines for dead trees, ...
German car manufacturers have invested in many measures to make their manufacturing process more climate and environmentally friendly and are saving money with these programmes, Spiegel Online reports. Since 2006, VW’s increased resource efficiency has ...
A petition by the initiative “Save Brandenburg” aimed at throttling construction of new wind turbines has failed, Radio Berlin Brandenburg (rbb) reports. Instead of the necessary 80,000 signatures, the wind power opponents only gathered 45,000 signatures. ...
A 5-megawatt storage battery has started regular operations in Brandenburg, after a 1-year test run was completed successfully, PV magazine reports. The battery is among the biggest of its kind in Europe and has the prequalification as a network ...
A reform of the European Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) could make the scheme more effective without endangering the competitiveness of the European raw materials industry, a report by international researchers, including the German Institute for ...
The Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) has suggested lowering the equity interest rate for operators of power grids and gas networks as of 2018/19, it said on Wednesday. The lower rates mirror current low interest rates on financial markets, BNetzA president ...
The German federal government cabinet has decided on a draft law for the ratification of the Paris Climate Agreement. Once the parliament passes the law, Germany has done its bit to ratify the climate treaty. The ratification law would also be “the basis ...
Europe’s car industry will be able to continue using exhaust emission systems for which exceeding the exhaust values is in many cases permitted, Nikolaus Doll writes in Die Welt. The German government has failed to have the part of an EU regulation ...
After the rejection of E.ON’s damages claims by a regional court in Hanover, hope for the big German utilities lies with the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe which is yet to decide related lawsuits, writes Andreas Mihm in an opinion piece in ...
Germany suffered more premature deaths linked to coal plant pollution than any other EU member state, according to a new study, reports Euractiv. Some 3,630 people in Germany died from coal-related illnesses in 2013, according to the report by the Health ...
The diesel emissions scandal has not slowed sales of new diesel cars, reports Henrik Mortsiefer in Tagesspiegel. Sales of diesel cars actually reached a new record of 812,000 in the first half of 2016. Total German car sales rose seven percent to 1.73 ...
Many cities might be forced to introduce bans on diesel cars because their nitrogen oxide emission levels exceed legal limits, reports Jasper von Altenbockum in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The German Cities Council blames the situation on carmakers’ ...
The Federal Environment Agency (UBA) has told news agency dpa that people should reduce long-haul flights and instead spend their free time locally or on bike and hiking holidays in order to save greenhouse gas emissions. The government should reduce ...
Implementing the Paris Climate Agreement will be challenging, according to Chancellor Angela Merkel. She said at the second day of the Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin this was already evident at Germany’s present work on a Climate Action Plan. All ...
The German federal and state governments should start soon to secure the financing of long-term effects of lignite operations in order to be prepared for the possible scenario that Czech EPH evades having to fund liabilities and provisions in connection ...
Germany’s largest power producer RWE teeters on the brink of bankruptcy, writes Sebastian Balzter in Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung. The utility urgently needs cash to pay for the nuclear exit. If the sale of the renewable subsidiary “Innogy” on ...
Negotiations between the four nuclear operators and the German government are at full speed, reports Antje Höning in Rheinische Post. Insiders told the author the government wanted a cabinet decision in August so the financing of the nuclear exit is put ...
German rail operator Deutsche Bahn hopes to operate a fleet of autonomous vehicles in the future to bring clients to the nearest train station, according to CEO Rüdiger Grube. “We will offer our door to door services in the future: Call a bike, car to go ...
Germany is building the world’s biggest ‘bicycle autobahn’ to connect 10 cities and remove 50,000 cars from the road, reports Renate von der Zee for the Guardian. “Together with the booming popularity of the electric bike, the highway could lead to a new ...
Germany will strive to get parliamentary approval for the ratification of the Paris Climate Agreement before the next climate summit gets underway in Marrakech in November 2016, environment minister Barbara Hendricks said at the opening press conference ...
Technicians from Germany’s largest automobile club ADAC have found in recent tests that older VW Golf models can have a much higher fuel use than purported and, therefore, also higher CO 2 emissions, Thomas Fromm writes in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Up to ...
The language in the Climate Action Plan 2050 regarding coal used to be crystal clear: it was to be ended “well before” 2050. But the new draft version of the paper is lacking this kind of clarity, writes Michael Bauchmüller in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. It ...
“Support for strengthening the EU ETS through unilateral measures by member states appears to have grown within the German government, according to a new draft climate plan,” Carbon Pulse writes. Find the article (behind paywall) in English here. ...
Sweden and Germany should set a precedent with Vattenfall’s lignite assets in the eastern German region of Lusatia and transfer the operations into a state-owned foundation with the clear goal of a socially acceptable and environmentally responsible ...
Hans Bünting, COO Renewables of RWE International SE (Innogy), sees no reason for the German utility to hold back on renewables investments in the UK following the Brexit vote. “On the basis of the currently available information, the UK is and will ...
A research project by the Institute for Applied Ecology (Öko-Institut) and the Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE) has shown that those households with the highest power consumption can be particularly successful when it comes to saving ...
German engineering company Siemens has decided against making new wind power investments in the UK until the future of the relationship with the EU becomes clearer following the Brexit vote, writes The Guardian. Company representatives call on the ...
Utility company RWE has unveiled the name of its new “colourful, cheerful and innovative” subsidiary: “Innogy”. The new company pools the German and international renewables, grid and infrastructure and retail business. ...
Wind turbines manufacturer Nordex has erected the world’s highest wind turbine in Hausbay, Rhineland-Palatinate. Its pole is 164 meters high and the blades are 65.5 metres long, Nordex says in a press release. With its complete height of 230 metres, the ...
German steel manufacturer Thyssen-Krupp launched a research project on using steel mill gases like nitrogen, methane or hydrogen oxide as resources for chemical materials, writes Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The project, dubbed Carbon2Chem, showed how ...
The nuclear repository commission has decided upon a report advising the parliament on how to proceed in the finding of a final repository for Germany’s nuclear waste. The commission, made up from parliamentarians, scientists and NGOs concluded its two ...
Do not believe any tests you haven’t faked yourself, is the lesson from the car emissions scandal, writes Jan Heidtmann in a commentary for Süddeutsche Zeitung. He says it is welcome news that the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) will conduct its own ...
The Federal Environment Agency (UBA) plans to initiate its own programme to measure emissions from diesel vehicles in real-life conditions, setting up parallel structures to those of the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), reports Süddeutsche Zeitung ...
The German Parliament has decided there will be no regulatory obligation for average households to install smart meters for their electricity consumption, writes the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). However, from next year on, large consumers with 10 ...
The federal government has prolonged a legal statute that regulates support for “interruptible loads”, i.e. power consumers who can reduce their electricity consumption in times of scarcity in order to stabilise the grid. Read the government press release ...
In line with a global divestment movement, the city of Berlin has decided to divest its money from “companies whose business model contradicts the goal of climate neutrality,” according to the text of a parliamentary proposal approved by the plenary. The ...
The VW emissions scandal has plunged the entire German car industry into its worst post-war crisis, writes Caspar Busse in a commentary for Süddeutsche Zeitung. “But something good comes out of it, because it finally leads to a fundamental rethink. The ...
Vattenfall will invest about three billion euros in Germany over the coming years, said the company’s president and CEO Magnus Hall in an interview with Handelsblatt. “There is significant growth potential in cities like Berlin or Hamburg, for example in ...
The compromise restricting hydraulic fracturing in Germany is a big success for the technique’s critics, writes Malte Kreutzfeldt in an opinion piece in die tageszeitung. “A complete ban of all kinds of fracturing, as the opponents demand, was politically ...
German wind turbine manufacturer Siemens has announced that it will provide offshore wind farms capable of generating power at levelled costs of below 8 cents per kilowatt-hour (kWh) as of 2025. These costs would include the grid connection to the shore, ...
Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche has announced dramatic changes to move the carmaker into the future of mobility, reports Cerstin Gemmelin in Süddeutsche Zeitung. “Daimler will radically develop into a different company within the next ten years,” Zetsche told ...
