23 Jul 2019, 13:57 Sven Egenter Coal Cost & Prices 91tv Germany should set a carbon price “significantly” higher than that of the European Emissions Trading System (ETS) on CO2 emissions across all sectors, the German National Academy of ...
29 Jan 2019, 13:34 Expert BWE- German Wind Energy Association Bundesverband Windenergie Citizens' energy Electricity market Business & Jobs Technology Expert VDMA- German Engineering Federation Verband Deutscher Maschinen- und Anlagenbau Business ...
Germany will have to actively lobby to make climate change and its security policy implications a key feature of its two-year term as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, Susanne Dr?ge writes in a commentary for the German Institute for ...
11 Mar 2019, 13:55 Benjamin Wehrmann Cars Business & Jobs Spiegel Online / Braunschweiger Zeitung Volkswagen, Germany’s largest carmaker, and its main rivals BMW and Daimler could all face EU fines of up to one billion euros each for allegedly ...
Fears of a surge in support for the right-wing populist party AfD must not influence the speed of Germany’s coal exit, Berlin’s Green energy senator Ramona Pop says in a reply to Brandenburg’s state premier Dietmar Woidke, published in the Tagesspiegel. ...
03 Jan 2019, 11:55 Expert VW- Volkswagen Transport Cars Expert VZBV- Federation of German Consumer Organisations Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband Cost & Prices Julian Wettengel 91tv 91tv Cars Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung More than 300 ...
As wind power generation starts to take off internationally, companies from the former global lead market Germany are set to close down parts of production at home and move jobs closer to growth markets, Brian Parkin and William Wilkes write for Bloomberg ...
The eastern German city of Leipzig is slated to become the “centre of the Energiewende’s digitalisation,” Wolfgang Brinkschulte writes for the public broadcaster MDR. The federal government wants the “Smart Infrastructure Hub” to become a pivot for ...
26 Sep 2018, 13:53 The German Football Association (DFB) has included a sustainability concept in its bid to host the 2024 European Football Championship. While the plan lacks concrete goals for action, awarding the tournament to Germany could obligate ...
Germany’s latest tender for new onshore wind power installations failed to attract enough bids to award the full offered amount of 670 megawatts, the country’s grid regulator said. The average support rate for the accepted bids with a total amount of 363 ...
VW is responsible for one of the largest industrial frauds in the post-war period and still tries to profit from it, writes Angelika Slavik in a commentary in Süddeutsche Zeitung. The carmaker is offering up to 10,000 euros for the trade-in of an old ...
17 Dec 2018, 13:40 Expert E.ON Utility Electricity market Business & Jobs Utilities Benjamin Wehrmann 91tv 91tv Digitalisation Technology 91tv Energy company E.ON has installed Germany’s first smart meter in a household, the ...
The new CO 2 limits for passenger cars proposed by the European Parliament’s environment committee are going too far, Deutsche Bank analyst Eric Heymann says in a research note. Obviously, the committee was betting on a break-through of electric vehicles ...
German Chancellor Angela Merkel endorsed a hard-fought EU environment minister compromise deal for a 35 percent cut in new car emissions by 2030, reports news agency Reuters. “(There is) a revisions clause for 2021, since the question of how fast we can ...
27 Feb 2019, 13:39 Benjamin Wehrmann Efficiency 91tv Responding to the cancellation of Germany’s buildings commission, the governing Social Democrats (SPD) are calling on their coalition partner, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU ...
The Berlin administrative court has ordered Germany’s capital to introduce driving bans for diesel vehicles on parts of eight roads suffering from exceedingly high levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO 2) pollution, reports the public broadcaster rbb24 in two ...
The German energy industry is utterly unsatisfied with the government’s energy policy track record after the first six months in office, Michael Bauchmüller writes in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “We’re lacking someone to set the pace in policymaking,” says ...
30 Nov 2018, 15:07 Julian Wettengel 91tv 91tv Climate & CO2 Politics Government WirtschaftsWoche German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her government have failed on climate protection policy and have not been able to come up with a vision ...
Advantageous regulations, decreasing overall costs, a wider offer of different models and increased demand mean that e-mobility is on the verge of breakthrough in Germany, according to consultancy McKinsey. Similar to the developments in the solar PV ...
Car drivers, politicians and the car industry itself all fell for the diesel engine’s supposed fuel efficiency but were deceived, because making them clean with expensive hardware retrofits will push up fuel consumption, writes Martin Murphy in a ...
16 Jan 2019, 14:00 Kerstine Appunn Coal Fossil fuels 91tv While the German economy as a whole would hardly suffer from phasing out lignite, coal regions in the Rhineland, central Germany and especially Lusatia in the east of Germany, are ...
Daimler-owned Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen’s Audi and BMW will all unveil new electric cars in the coming days in a “German onslaught against Tesla’s dominance of the fast-growing market for premium battery cars”, report Esha Vaish and Laurence Frost for ...
04 Mar 2019, 13:33 Rachel Waldholz Cars Hydrogen Business & Jobs 91tv / The Daily Telegraph / Die Welt / Deutsche Welle German carmakers are planning a major investment in electric vehicles over the next three years, the German ...
Germany’s transport minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) has presented his proposal to reduce emissions from diesel cars in German cities to the chancellor and the heads of carmakers BMW, Volkswagen, and Daimler, Daniel Delhaes, Markus Fasse, and Martin Murphy ...
The price for heating oil in Germany has reached its highest level in several years, price comparison website Check24 says in a press release. At 1,537 euros per 2,000 litres, heating oil in September 2018 cost 8 percent more than in the month before and ...
The Free Voters, new coalition partners in Bavaria, Germany’s southern economic powerhouse state, reject important grid expansion plans that are meant to improve the distribution of electricity from renewable power sources across the country, Claudia ...
Germany’s rail operator Deutsche Bahn has stepped up its green energy ambitions. The company announced its intention to increase the share of renewable power in its total electricity consumption to 80 percent by 2030, reports the newswire dpa. One year ...
Germany’s federal government lacks an overall strategy for the electrification of the country’s railway network, according to the lobby group Pro-Rail Alliance. Citing the latest EU comparative figures, the Alliance said there were large differences in ...
The most important political decisions in Germany cannot be made by directives but must be earned by reconciling antagonist factions in society trough compromise and consideration, Thorsten Knuf writes in a commentary for the Frankfurter Rundschau. “This ...
06 Feb 2019, 14:01 Benjamin Wehrmann 91tv 91tv Climate & CO2 Mobility Elections & Politics dpa / Focus Online Germany’s transport minister Andreas Scheuer has invited politicians from opposition parties to join the country’s mobility ...
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has floated the idea of working with Daimler on electric work vans after being guilt-tripped on Twitter for using fuel-burning vehicles to service its cars, report Gabrielle Coppola and Christoph Rauwald for Bloomberg. In response to a ...
The German Energy Agency (dena) has gathered a group of companies from the energy, automotive, aviation, chemicals and mineral oil, mechanical and plant engineering, insurance and finance sectors to launch a global alliance for power fuels. The list of ...
A quick end of coal-fired power production in Germany and a parallel expansion of wind and solar power capacities would reduce carbon emissions sufficiently to meet the 2020 and 2030 climate target in line with the Paris Agreement, a study by research ...
02 Jan 2019, 13:12 Expert AGEB- AG Energiebilanzen e.V. Climate & CO2 Electricity market Energiewende Utilities Expert Fraunhofer ISE Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems Renewables Solar Julian Wettengel 91tv 91tv Electricity ...
13 Feb 2019, 13:14 S?ren Amelang 91tv 91tv Cars Business & Jobs 91tv The number of electric cars worldwide rose 64 percent last year to reach 5.6 million in early 2019, according to the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen ...
Low water levels following a prolonged drought in Germany and very modest wind conditions have put a strain on the business of energy company EnBW, which pursues a rigorous strategy of replacing nuclear and fossil power generation capacity with renewables ...
13 Dec 2018, 14:41 Benjamin Wehrmann 91tv 91tv Gas Security The Guardian The head of Germany’s parliamentary foreign affairs committee, Norbert R?ttgen of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU party, has urged the government to ...
12 Mar 2019, 14:00 Benjamin Wehrmann Climate & CO2 Transport Tagesspiegel The growing level of emissions caused by air travel has started to move into the debate about Germany’s climate action, Helge Hommers writes for the newspaper Tagesspiegel. A ...
08 Apr 2019, 12:35 Expert BMW- Bayerische Motoren Werke Bavarian Motor Works Transport Cars Expert Daimler AG Transport Cars Business & Jobs Expert VW- Volkswagen Transport Cars Edgar Meza Cars Reuters The EU Commission has charged German automakers ...
16 Jan 2019, 13:26 Kerstine Appunn Gas Security Handelsblatt Rainer Seele, chairman of Austrian oil and gas company OMV, has criticised the US ambassador to Germany’s letter to contractors of Russian-German gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 as a “completely ...
The expansion of wind power generation in northern Germany is meeting resistance from politicians and environmental organisations alike, Welt Online reports in two separate articles. In north-eastern state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, politician Eckhardt ...
01 Feb 2019, 12:26 S?ren Amelang Coal Climate & CO2 Carbon Pulse Carbon market experts remain unsure about the impact of Germany’s plan to cancel CO2?certificates in the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) to ensure the pending coal exit will have the ...
A large majority of Germans is not satisfied with the way the federal government aims to prevent diesel driving bans in inner cities, according to a survey by online pollster YouGov, commissioned by news agency dpa. About two-thirds of respondents said ...
08 Feb 2019, 13:35 Benjamin Wehrmann 91tv 91tv Climate & CO2 Cars Zeit Online The head of Germany’s mobility commission, Henning Kagermann, has said that a general speed limit would not be very effective in reducing transport emissions. ...
10 Dec 2018, 14:02 Benjamin Wehrmann 91tv 91tv Energiewende Government Bloomberg Germany’s long-time Chancellor, Angela Merkel, will leave her successor a long list of unsolved tasks once she leaves office, which will happen in 2021 the ...
17 Dec 2018, 13:22 Benjamin Wehrmann 91tv 91tv Energiewende Finance 91tv The German government does not plan to introduce quantitative controlling standards for the energy transition. In an answer to a parliamentary inquiry by ...
There is no doubt electric vehicles are headed for mass-market success, but it would be premature to write-off fuel cells, Christoph M. Schwarzer writes in a commentary for electrive. Fuel cells require fewer raw materials than batteries, are more ...
14 Feb 2019, 14:15 S?ren Amelang 91tv 91tv Cars Tagesspiegel Background The European Commission has approved German government plans to impose diesel bans only in cities that significantly exceeded pollution limits, Markus Grabitz, Stefan ...
The European Union will reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 45 percent by 2030 if the new targets for renewables expansion and energy efficiency are fully implemented, according to the European Commission’s calculations outlined to the news ...
A survey commissioned by price comparison website Verivox has found that almost one in five Germans says people should pay higher power prices in order to facilitate investments in the decarbonisation of the energy system. In the survey with over 2,000 ...
German energy company Uniper faces a loss of 550 million euros and fails to get out of the red after the first three quarters of 2018, the company says in a press release. The company owned by Finnish energy provider Fortum says that the “ increased CO 2 ...
The economy minister in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Andreas Pinkwart, has proposed to allocate coal power plants a certain amount of electricity they are allowed to produce before they have to shut down instead of deciding a set date for ...
The start of evictions of anti-coal activists in the Hambach Forest “has already done enormous damage to the image of [energy company] RWE”, which could turn into a veritable “disaster” once the company starts cutting trees in October, Jürgen Flauger, ...
11 Dec 2018, 15:47 S?ren Amelang 91tv 91tv Coal Fossil fuels Policy 91tv Germany’s coal commission will hold its next full plenary meeting on 25 January, followed by the last meeting on 1 February, a commission source told Clean ...
An agreement reached by Japan and China to set up a common standard for e-car charging technology could topple the Combined Charging System technology pushed for by German car companies, Welt Online reports. Japanese consortium Chademo and the China ...
The conservative government of western German coal state North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) is considering rethinking its energy policy and to formulate “ a new basic approach to coal ”, Kirsten Bialdiga, Reinhard Kowalewsky und Thomas Reisener write in the ...
The German economy and energy ministry (BMWi) has commissioned a study of the country’s options for capturing and storing carbon dioxide emissions to lower its carbon footprint, Manuel Berkel writes on Spiegel Online. According to the article, energy ...
09 Jan 2019, 12:06 S?ren Amelang 91tv 91tv Fossil fuels Elections & Politics Rheinische Post Germany’s coal commission will agree on a phase-out within around 20 years, according to Armin Laschet, premier of the western coal mining state ...
German truckmakers are outraged about the more ambitious emission limits for heavy duty vehicles adopted by the European Parliament, report Till Hoppe and Franz Hubik in the Handelsblatt. Industry association VDA said it was “unworkable” to reduce ...
30 Nov 2018, 15:04 Julian Wettengel Climate & CO2 Fossil fuels International 91tv Despite the extension of the work of Germany’s coal exit commission, the country’s delegation will not go to Katowice empty-handed, said environment ...
The head of German energy company RWE’s workers’ council, Harald Louis, says activists in the embattled Hambach Forest who are trying to prevent the expansion of a nearby coal mine are “blackmailing” the company by using the country’s coal exit commission ...
The German automotive industry is becoming increasingly dependent on a small number of foreign manufacturers for batteries, which are necessary components for electric cars, Wolfgang Bernhart from the consultancy Roland Berger said in an interview with ...
04 Mar 2019, 13:18 Benjamin Wehrmann Climate & CO2 Politics Society Tagesspiegel As the political debate over immigration in Germany is becoming less heated in line with the decreasing number of migrants seeking access to the country, the party that ...
21 Dec 2018, 13:34 Benjamin Wehrmann 91tv 91tv Elections & Politics Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung The new coalition treaty for the incoming government between the conservative CDU and the Green Party in the German state Hesse bears the ...
The German government’s recently decided concept to avoid diesel driving bans in German inner cities is based on outdated data, reports Martin Gropp for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The grand coalition decided to introduce special measures in Germany’s ...
Germany’s energy minister Peter Altmaier will invite businesses to an electricity price summit in January to discuss rising power prices for small and medium- sized companies, he announced this week. Industry association BDI said that rising power prices ...
03 Jul 2019, 14:09 Julian Wettengel Coal Policy Tagesspiegel Background German economy minister Peter Altmaier said the government plans to agree on a “Hard Coal Exit Law” in autumn, and the decision on which plants are shut down first will be taken via ...
03 Dec 2018, 14:39 Julian Wettengel 91tv 91tv Climate & CO2 COP24 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung The international community is failing badly to cooperate as needed to counter the rise in global temperature, writes Andreas Mihm in an ...
The investments made by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) in Germany in recent years have started to pay off and reduced the companies’ exposure to high power prices, German state-owned business development bank KfW said in a press release. ...
The Green Party in the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) is adamant about holding its party convention at the embattled Hambach Forest. “We as Greens want to send a message and support the peaceful resistance” against energy company RWE ...
The energy consumption of German industry remained unchanged in 2017. According to the statistics office Destatis, 87 percent was used “for energetic purposes such as electrcitiy and heat production.” The remaining 13 percent was used for the production ...
The German biogas industry is fighting for survival even though it is indispensable, writes Kathrin Witsch in the business daily Handelsblatt. The technology was once seen as a saviour of the energy transition because it can generate electricity ...
The German capital Berlin could be one of the next cities to introduce driving bans for older diesel cars, public broadcaster rbb reports. According to documents by the Berlin Senate, the bans the would affect 200,000 vehicles ?are “inevitable” and could ...
28 Feb 2019, 10:36 A survey of economics professors that found widespread scepticism about the climate impact of Germany's landmark coal exit deal accidentally revealed that many economists have only a patchy grasp on key details of the plan. More ...
11 Dec 2018, 13:51 S?ren Amelang 91tv 91tv Climate & CO2 Society Tagesspiegel Germany plays a central role at the UN climate summit COP24 because it wants to show that ambitious climate protection offers big opportunities for new and ...
23 Aug 2018, 18:15 Germany’s coal commission will not give any recommendation regarding mining-owner RWE’s plans to continue clearing forest for the planned extension of the Hambach lignite mine in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The country's ...
Opposition to wind power expansion in Germany is gaining clout, as shown by a new video spot, with which the German Wildlife Foundation (Deutsche Wildtier Stiftung) has entered the campaign before the upcoming state elections in Hesse, writes Daniel ...
10 Dec 2018, 14:03 Benjamin Wehrmann 91tv 91tv Climate & CO2 Transport 91tv German airlines TUIfly and Condor are among the ten least climate-damaging aviation companies in the world, NGO atmosfair says in its Airline Index ...
19 Dec 2018, 13:49 S?ren Amelang 91tv 91tv Cars Reuters Volkswagen will likely have to step up its plans for electric car mass production to meet the new 2030 fleet emission limits, report Tassilo Hummel, Christoph Steitz and Irene Preisinger ...
Private cars remain the favoured means of transportation for most Germans, but they are only used for 45 minutes per day on average, a study commissioned by Germany’s transport ministry (BMVI) has found. About 43 percent of all trips are made with either ...
Low water levels in the Rhine river after a prolonged drought have disrupted fuel and chemical supplies on the vital European trade route, sparking concern over potential economic impact and raising questions about how climate change will hit Europe’s ...
Business development banks like the KfW are an important source of funding for Germany’s energy transition and they increasingly use so-called green bonds to finance endeavours in clean energy production or e-mobility, Günter Heismann writes in the ...
The German coal exit commission will debate the impact of the rising price for EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) allowances in its upcoming meeting on 18 September, report Claus Hecking and Stefan Schultz in a lead story on Spiegel Online. Volatile prices ...
Enak Ferlemann, parliamentary state secretary in the transport ministry (BMVI), said that today’s form of e-mobility with batteries is only a precursor to drives based on hydrogen fuel cells, writes Olaf Preuss in Die Welt. Hydrogen made with offshore ...
German energy company RWE and environmental organisations have met to discuss the situation in the embattled Hambach Forest that energy company RWE wants to cut down to make room for a nearby coal mine, reports Spiegel Online. RWE head Rolf Martin Schmitz ...
10 Oct 2018, 17:18 Two days after the UN's latest IPCC report on global warming urged greater international efforts against climate change, the German parliament saw a heated debate about the implications for Germany. While the Green Party, which had ...
The European Union’s competition authority has approved the plan of German luxury carmakers Daimler and BMW to combine their car-sharing businesses, subject to conditions, reports Gabriela Baczynska for Reuters. The deal includes car-sharing units Car2Go ...
The modernisation and decarbonisation of Germany’s heating sector has enormous carbon emissions reduction potential that needs to be tapped more, the energy minister of the German coal state of Brandenburg, Albrecht Gerber, says in an article carried by ...
The state of South Australia wants to build the world’s largest network of connected home power storages and counts on German solar battery maker sonnen to deliver part of the infrastructure for the project that will encompass 40,000 households, the ...
28 Jun 2019, 12:34 Expert Green Party Bündnis 90/ Die Grünen Renewable Energy Act | EEG 2014 Policy Julian Wettengel Climate & CO2 Electricity market 91tv Due to the 2018 heat wave in northern Europe, some German power plants had to ...
05 Feb 2019, 13:35 Benjamin Wehrmann Coal Cost & Prices Handelsblatt The proposal by Germany’s coal exit commission to gradually phase out the fossil fuel by 2038 is tantamount to a “planned economy” approach and does little to curb carbon emissions ...
In a joint declaration, the German and French federal governments have committed to accelerate the implementation of the European energy transition. Among other pledges, the two countries will push at the European level for ambitious CO 2 emission ...
German carmaker Audi has presented its first all-electric model “e-tron”, which is obviously designed to be an answer to Tesla’s success, writes Tom Grünweg for Spiegel Online. Daniel B?nnighausen argues on EV website electrive that the car is the very ...
Buyers of Tesla Model S must pay back government support they received to purchase the car, the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control (BAFA) has announced in a press release. BAFA estimates that its action applies to approximately 800 people. ...
06 Dec 2018, 14:23 Benjamin Wehrmann 91tv 91tv Fossil fuels Business & Jobs Cities MDR The eastern German city of Leipzig wants to end the use of coal for heat and power production by 2023 and replace coal plants with gas turbines until a ...
The IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C, released today, shows the urgent need for ambitious climate action, according to the German government. In a press release, environment minister Svenja Schulze said the key message of the report is that ...
29 Nov 2018, 16:18 Benjamin Wehrmann 91tv 91tv Wind Politics Welt Online The German federal state of Saxony-Anhalt is tightening regulations for the construction of new wind turbines in order to protect threatened bird species like the red ...
Flexible energy options, such as energy storage, smart charging electric vehicles, demand response, and interconnectors are needed to ensure that the energy transition proceeds on an optimal path, according to a Bloomberg NEF report focused on the UK and ...
Bottlenecks in the delivery of electric cars are causing customers to have to wait up to a year for their new vehicles, according to an article published in Der Tagesspiegel. The delays stem from the conversion to a new emissions test called the Worldwide ...
05 Dec 2018, 13:55 Expert Prognos Consultancy Energiewende Julian Wettengel 91tv 91tv Climate & CO2 Cost & Prices Finance Prognos Germany can implement effective measures to mitigate climate change without straining its fiscal leeway ...
The confusion about discounts make it highly unlikely that German diesel drivers will swap their vehicle against a newer model, write Andreas Macho, Martin Seiwert and Volker ter Haseborg in an article for business magazine Wirtschaftswoche. While company ...
30 Nov 2018, 15:02 Julian Wettengel 91tv 91tv Climate & CO2 International 91tv Germany will not leave developing countries alone in dealing with climate protection and adaptation to climate change, said German environment ...
The commission tasked with planning Germany’s coal exit could extend its negotiations well into 2019, although it is scheduled to deliver ideas for quick emissions reduction and an end date for coal-fired power production by December this year. According ...
29 Nov 2018, 16:33 [CORRECTION: The German government announced to contribute an additional 1.5 billion euros to the Green Climate Fund, not 750 million euros.] Julian Wettengel 91tv 91tv Climate & CO2 Politics International Clean Energy ...
Germany needs a national strategy to boost walking as the most basic, quiet and emission-free form of mobility, according to the Federal Environment Agency (UBA). The agency says the potential to increase walking is large because a fifth of all distances ...
08 Jan 2019, 13:15 S?ren Amelang 91tv 91tv Climate & CO2 International Tagesspiegel Background The German government has presented an incomplete National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) draft to the European Commission at the last minute ...
04 Sep 2018, 09:02 Germany commissioned its 100,000th home storage battery last week – and the boom is far from over, says Detlef Neuhaus, CEO of German solar PV module and residential battery storage system maker Solarwatt. Neuhaus warns that Germany is ...
Plans to open a liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in the German federal state of Schleswig-Holstein could weaken arguments about the country's dependence on Russian gas- a key criticism of US President Donald Trump, Klaus Stratmann writes in the ...
27 May 2019, 13:46 Rose-Anne Clermont Grid Renewables n-tv Federal economy minister Peter Altmaier of the Christian Democratic Party (CDU) met with the heads of departments of all 16 German federal states in Hanover on 24 May to discuss how to better ...
07 Feb 2019, 13:43 Benjamin Wehrmann 91tv 91tv Wind 91tv Wind power in Germany largely contributes about as much electricity to the national power mix as can be expected given the country’s meteorological conditions, the research ...
Contrary to the German government’s promise to close the gap towards reaching the country’s 2020 climate target as much as possible and take steps towards reaching the 2030 target, it “ is doing nothing," Malte Kreutzfeldt writes in an opinion piece ...
Germany’s biggest carmaker VW has said it is prepared to build 50 million e-cars and already has “sourced” the batteries needed to fulfil this goal, company CEO Herbert Diess told Automotive News in an interview. “This is a huge momentum coming, and ...
The potential of artificial intelligence (AI) to help solve pressing environmental challenges needs to be better understood and exploited, panellists agreed at a debate on AI and the environment organised by Microsoft in Berlin. “AI is going to change the ...
The rapid spread of diesel engines in Europe over the past two decades thanks to subsidies has not lowered CO 2 emissions, according to a study by the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS), Trier University, and the International Council on ...
Twenty municipalities along the planned route for HVDC (high-voltage direct current) transmission lines to carry wind power from northern Germany to industrial centres in the south, have requested they be constructed as overhead cables rather than buried ...
The first bicycle lane made out of solar panels in Germany has been opened on a 90-meter stretch near the western German city Cologne, Florian Gontek reports for Spiegel Online. The path consists of 150 solar power modules that are capable of feeding ...
22 Feb 2019, 13:23 Kerstine Appunn Grid 91tv Grid operators TenneT and TransnetBW have presented their detailed plans for the route of Germany’s large north-south electricity line “SuedLink”, running from windy Schleswig-Holstein down to ...
29 Nov 2018, 15:44 Julian Wettengel 91tv 91tv Energiewende Government WirtschaftsWoche / BMWi The Green Party’s energy minister in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Franz Untersteller, has lamented a “standstill of federal energy policy” ahead of a meeting ...
A Greenpeace-commissioned study conducted by the Fraunhofer Institute for Energy Economics and Energy System Technology posits that Germany can still meet its 2020 emissions reduction target, provided that several brown-coal-fired power plants are ...
The European Commission has given up plans to tighten the European emissions reduction goal for 2030 ahead of the UN climate conference COP24 in Katowice as member states did not voice sufficient support for the ambitious target to reduce CO 2 levels by ...
The rising share of renewable electricity in Germany and France makes energy experts believe that electricity storage will become crucial in the near to medium term, write Nikolas W?lfing from the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW), Mark ...
Environment and climate policy “ do not take place ” in Germany under the current grand coalition government of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU alliance and the Social Democrats (SPD), writes Michael Bauchmüller in an opinion piece ...
More than a dozen villages are to be demolished and thousands of families relocated to make way for the expansion of Garzweiler opencast lignite mine, Stefanie Glinski reports for the Thomson Reuters Foundation. Located in the German federal state of ...
The first day-ahead auction on the EPEX SPOT power exchange after the split of the common power price zone between Austria and Germany, which becomes effective today (1 October), saw higher prices for Austria than Germany, writes the Austrian Energy ...
The governments of Germany’s eastern coal mining states have criticised a draft proposal by the country’s coal exit commission for focusing too much on emissions reduction and too little on the economic prospects of people living in mining regions, the ...
The demand for electricity storage solutions will increase substantially in Germany in the next decade, with battery and heat storages expected to grow the fastest, according to a survey conducted by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) among ...
The coal commission delay shows that the government is taking the work of the commission seriously because “otherwise this spectacular intervention would have been unnecessary,” writes Andreas Mihm in a commentary in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. But ...
German police prepare the clearing of the last known tree-house holdout in the embattled Hambach Forest near Cologne to enable energy company RWE to continue expanding its nearby coal mine, the Rheinische Post reports. One activist was injured during a ...
When CO 2 prices rise to over 50 euros per allowance under the European Emissions Trading System (EU ETS), even lignite plants will struggle to remain profitable, writes Daniel Wetzel in an article for Die Welt. However, these plants, which are always ...
21 Sep 2018, 16:19 Germany will miss its climate targets for the building sector if it continues to neglect efficiency because of the increasingly tight housing market, environmental NGOs and efficiency associations warn. The climate action proponents ...
As South Hesse’s regional assembly prepares to approve its renewable energy development plan by the end of this year, a new report published by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation (BfN) is likely to lead to increased criticism of wind power ...
The slow pace of progress in the negotiations on a rulebook for the Paris Climate Agreement is “deeply worrying,” and industrial countries must both help configure global climate policy in a socially responsible way and do their own homework, write ...
14 Nov 2018, 14:13 A new government report detailing Germany’s failure to cut emissions increases pressure on the country’s coal commission to agree on a speedy phase-out plan. Work in the coal commission enters a critical stage for climate protection ...
Police forces in the German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) have moved into the embattled Hambach Forest that energy company RWE wants to cut down to make room for a nearby coal mine, the Rheinische Post reports. On Twitter, police said they ...
Buildings cause a third of German emissions, but the government continues to “shamefully neglect” this problem, writes Bernhard P?tter in a commentary for tageszeitung. “It doesn’t really bother anyone that all climate targets are missed in this sector, ...
It is “feasible” that the UN climate summit in Katowice in December (COP24) will produce an agreement on implementation guidelines (also called rulebook or work programme) to the Paris Climate Agreement, Germany’s negotiator Nicole Wilke from the ...
As the European Union sets itself more ambitious energy efficiency goals for 2030, Germany will miss its 2020 targets, writes Steven Hanke in Welt am Sonntag. “We will not reach the efficiency targets we have set ourselves for 2020 in this way,” said ...
01 Mar 2019, 13:34 Benjamin Wehrmann Coal Nuclear phase-out 91tv Nearly half of the people in Germany say the plan to close nuclear plants before coal is right, a survey commissioned by price comparison website Verivox has found. In the ...
The governments of France and Germany have entered into an unusual alliance with BlackRock, the world’s biggest investment fund, to achieve progress in unlocking private capital for investments in climate action, Astrid D?rner and Peter K?hler write in ...
The environment ministry wants to promote the restoration of moorlands in Germany, a press release said. Ninety percent of Germany’s moors are drained, making them into a source instead of a sink for CO 2. “Only a wet moor is a good moor,” environment ...
04 Jul 2019, 12:41 Expert BDEW-German Association of Energy and Water Industries Bundesverband der Energie- und Wasserwirtschaft Electricity market Business & Jobs Cost & Prices Utilities Julian Wettengel Climate & CO2 Renewables Clean Energy ...
With their protest slogan “No good climate without good work”?– used to demand job protection as Germany plans a coal phase-out?– coal workers are making a valid point, Joachim Wille writes in an opinion piece for the Frankfurter Rundschau. But despite ...
Germany’s agriculture ministry plans to boost sustainable forestry and sees the need for more climate-friendly livestock farming in order to achieve the agricultural sector’s emission reduction targets, federal agriculture minister Julia Kl?ckner (CDU) ...
German energy company RWE will breach the law if it continues to press ahead with the clearing of the Hambach Forest in western Germany to expand its nearby lignite mine, environmental NGO Greenpeace says in a press release. According to a legal opinion ...
Germany’s finance ministry, led by Social Democrat (SPD) Olaf Scholz, has rejected environment minister Svenja Schulze’s (also SPD) plan to work on a national price on CO? emissions in Germany, which would include sectors such as heating and transport. ...
20 Dec 2018, 14:04 Kerstine Appunn Cars Bild Zeitung Stricter EU CO2 limits for cars “threaten the German car industry with a total loss that nobody can repair”, Tom Drechsler writes in Germany’s largest tabloid Bild Zeitung. The article blames Austria, ...
Businesses including Daimler, Audi, Caterpillar, Bosch, and energy company ENBW, are teaming up with scientists in the state of Baden-Württemberg to explore the potential for, and large-scale production of, synthetic fuels, the Frankfurter Allgemeine ...
The German Federal Motor Transport Agency (KBA) has sent 1.5 million letters to owners of old diesel cars in heavily polluted regions, advising them to exchange the vehicles for newer diesel models, reports Christian Frahm on Spiegel Online in an article ...
19 Dec 2018, 13:52 S?ren Amelang 91tv 91tv Cars ARD The outcry from German carmakers over new EU fleet emission targets are a bitter disappointment, argues Karin Dohr in a commentary for public broadcaster ARD. “Car bosses seem to ignore the ...
A poll commissioned by the German oil and gas producer Wintershall and carried out by pollster Forsa reveals that 54 percent of German respondents believe that natural gas is the best supplement to renewables, compared to 22 percent for timber, 20 percent ...
Cheating on fuel efficiency by major carmakers is responsible for 264 million tonnes of additional CO 2 emissions between the years 2000 and 2017, an analysis by NGO Transport & Environment has shown. The additional cost of fuel amounted to nearly 150 ...
Investments in the research and development of modern technologies are key to successfully achieving Germany’s transition to a low-carbon energy supply, the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy says in a press release. For that reason, the ...
Environment minister Svenja Schulze’s push for e-mobility will not allow Germany to meet its 2030 emissions reduction target, Dieter Seifried writes in a commentary for Frankfurter Rundschau. That's because the electricity needed to power electric ...
28 Sep 2018, 12:24 Germany still lacks an overview of the total cost of the Energiewende and the government must improve cost transparency, efficiency and coordination of the energy transition in order to keep citizens’ trust, the Federal Court of ...
29 Nov 2018, 15:53 Julian Wettengel 91tv 91tv Fossil fuels Government Dow Jones Newswire The decision to extend the work of Germany’s coal exit commission shows that we have reached a point where crucial questions must be answered by the ...
Just 20,000 people in Germany are still employed in the once-mighty coal sector but their influence on energy policy is far greater than their number would suggest, Felix Heilmann writes for Climate Home. Coal workers are well-organised and good at ...
21 Jun 2019, 13:32 Expert Deutsche Bahn German railway operator Transport Business & Jobs S?ren Amelang Transport Freight Tageszeitung (taz) German railway operator Deutsche Bahn has agreed to a massive increase in passenger and freight capacities in ...
The rising price for CO 2 emissions in the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS) has created windfall gains for Germany’s energy and climate funds, the latest monthly report by Germany’s Federal Environment Agency (UBA) reveals. According to the July 2018 ...
The French government’s decision to increase the price of diesel fuel has sparked heavy protests across the entire country, but more such “unreasonable demands” are necessary in France and elsewhere if Europe wants to succeed in drastically reducing its ...
A new government report detailing Germany’s failure at emissions reductions increases the pressure on the country’s coal commission to agree on a speedy phase-out plan. Germany remains set to widely miss its self-imposed 2020 emission reduction target, ...
02 Jan 2019, 13:06 Expert Federal Foreign Office Ausw?rtiges Amt International Security Julian Wettengel 91tv 91tv Climate & CO2 Security 91tv Germany has assumed a two-year seat as a non-permanent member of the United ...
The German federal government must implement the promised additional tenders for offshore wind energy without delay and must also rapidly increase the expansion paths for all renewable energy sources, the Mechanical Engineering Industry Association (VDMA) ...
European Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Ca?ete’s proposal to raise the EU’s 2030 greenhouse gas emissions reduction target to 45 percent from 40 percent relative to 1990 levels would catalyse action on the part of other ...
A survey of more than 7,500 German households in summer 2017 found that 84 percent approved of support for renewable energy and two thirds supported a coal exit, researchers from Rhineland-Westphalia Institute for Economic Research (RWI Essen) write. ...
A climate survey published by the European Investment Bank (EIB) shows a north-south divide in EU citizens’ sentiment towards global warming. Southern Europeans are more concerned and see it as a more immediate threat compared to northern Europeans, who ...
06 Dec 2018, 14:16 Benjamin Wehrmann 91tv 91tv Climate & CO2 International Federal Environment Ministry The German environment ministry (BMU) will support a global initiative to protect moorlands, which act as important storage for carbon ...
The German Green Party should not overlook the concerns of workers in the steel or car industry when it debates the decarbonisation of the country’s economy, metalworker union IG Metall head J?rg Hofmann said as a guest speaker at the Greens’ annual party ...
The proposal by the European Parliament’s Committee on the Environment to tighten emissions limits for new vehicles has triggered a lively debate in Germany. The country’s car industry association VDA called the proposal “highly alarming” and “unworkable, ...
Rising grid fees, increased wholesale prices, and the high oil price level will likely lead to rising natural gas prices for household consumers in 2019, writes the price comparison website CHECK24 in a press release. Grid fees, which make up about one ...
Germany’s energy policy has not lived up to its climate and renewables expansion targets and has failed to adequately integrate citizens in planning procedures, Simone Peter of the German Renewable Energy Federation (BEE) and Stefan Kapferer of the German ...
Germany’s transport ministry said it would order roughly 100,000 Opel vehicles to be recalled as part of an emissions probe, after prosecutors searched the carmaker’s offices earlier, report Hans Seidenstuecker and Irene Preisinger for Reuters. German ...
A large majority of Germans says the continued expansion of renewable energies is important (24 percent) or very important (68 percent), according to a survey conducted by forsa and commissioned by the energy company EnBW and the newspaper Welt. Only a ...
Germany has long ceased to be an “exemplary student” in climate protection and turned into a “coal-black sheep” of the international community, writes Konrad Schuller in the Sunday edition of conservative daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. An ambitious ...
Germany has granted about 100,000 million euros in subsidies to e-car buyers over the past two years, merely one sixth of the total sum authorities have earmarked for helping e-mobility get off the ground in the country, the Federal Office for Economic ...
The German army (Bundeswehr) has caused 32 wildfires during target practice in this year’s exceptionally hot and dry summer, the Tageszeitung (taz) newspaper reports. According to an analysis conducted by Germany’s ministry of defence (BMVg) for the ...
A legal opinion commissioned by coal power plant operator RWE argues a coal exit by policy decree would be unconstitutional, reports Klaus Stratmann in business daily Handelsblatt. The “renowned” energy law firm Posser Spieth Wolfers & Partners argues ...
The apparent preparation of clearing operations in the Hambach Forest is a sad event for many environmentalists who have hoped to preserve the old trees for years, but they should keep their focus on making progress in Germany’s coal exit commission, ...
After a first procedural session in June, Germany’s coal exit commission meets today to “lay the groundwork for joint understanding of the 24 experts and four heads”, writes Andreas Mihm in an article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The commission – ...
Germany’s government is creating a “climate chaos,” the tabloid newspaper Bild writes in a page two article. Despite the high costs of renewable power, the targets of the energy transition are far from being reached, the article says. Another point of ...
Energy company RWE plans to dig a ditch around the embattled Hambach Forest to prevent anti-coal protesters from entering the area, the Süddeutsche Zeitung writes. An RWE spokesperson said work on the ditch had already begun but added that it was not ...
While the Greens were strengthened by their success in the regional elections in the German federal state of Hesse, it remains to be seen whether they can convert this political success into concrete green policy, writes Joachim Wille in an opinion piece ...
The Federation of German Consumer Organisations (vzbv) together with auto club ADAC will file a class action lawsuit against Volkswagen for “intentionally and immorally causing harm to and betraying customers with software manipulation” to obfuscate its ...
Major German power companies have protected themselves against the sharp increase in ETS carbon emission prices, report Vera Eckert and Nina Chestney for Reuters newswire. RWE has said that its CO 2 position is financially hedged until the end of 2022. ...
The German government’s decision to grant tax relief for electric or hybrid company cars will lead to a marked increase in demand for e-cars and batteries from January 2019 onwards, writes the consultancy PwC in a press release. According to PwC’s ...
Power and gas grid operators Tennet, Gasunie, and Thyssengas plan the construction of a plant to store renewable power in the form of gas on an industrial scale, according to a dpa newswire article carried by the Wirtschaftswoche. A Tennet spokesperson ...
The surcharge German power customers pay with their power bill to finance the expansion of renewable energy is going to remain largely stable next year, according to calculations made by the energy policy think tank Agora Energiewende*. The renewables ...
14 Feb 2019, 13:58 Julian Wettengel 91tv 91tv Gas International Internationale Politik A u-turn on the controversial Russian-German natural gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 – currently under construction in the Baltic Sea – is unlikely, Christian ...
Germany's climate protection efforts are proving insufficient to achieve its climate protection targets for 2020 as well as for the period from 2021 to 2030 in the areas of transport, buildings and agriculture, according to a joint report by sister ...
05 Dec 2018, 13:44 Julian Wettengel 91tv 91tv Climate & CO2 EIB / YouGov US citizens are somewhat more optimistic than EU citizens about the economic benefits of measures to combat climate change, according to a survey by online pollster ...
Germany’s leading position in energy transition technologies and renewables is uncatchable for countries embarking on their own “Energiewende,” French energy expert Gerard Magnin says in an interview on Spiegel Online. The former board member of French ...
Car buyers around the world are “in love with SUVs,” Jürgen Stackmann, member of the Board of Management of the Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand, told the news agency dpa. By 2025, every second car sold by VW would be an SUV. According to Stackmann, the ...
The German government has failed to report the carbon emissions savings achieved by putting several coal plants into a security stand-by mode reserved for supply bottlenecks, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. An assessment scheduled for the ...
Environmental Action Germany (DUH) is pushing for driving bans in polluted cities of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Germany’s most populous state, for all diesel cars that do not meet the Euro 6 emissions standard, the environmental NGO says in a press ...
The designated new economy and energy minister of the German federal state of Brandenburg, J?rg Steinbach, is likely to keep the pro-coal stance of his predecessor, Albrecht Gerber, who announced his resignation on 21 August citing private reasons, Igor ...
Representatives from different ministries of the French and German governments met in Paris for the first meeting of the inter-ministerial High Level Working Group on climate change, the so-called “Meseberg Climate Working Group”, the environment ministry ...
Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw his support for the joint communiqué at the G7 summit in Canada is “sobering and a bit depressing”, German Chancellor Angela Merkel told Anne Will in a television interview for German public broadcaster ARD. Merkel said ...
Germany will only be able to reach its 2030 climate targets with the help of ambitious EU car emission rules, writes Christian Hochfeld, head of mobility think tank Agora Verkehrswende*, in a guest article for Zeit Online. The current EU Commission ...
Germany’s transport minister Andreas Scheuer uses the Opel recall “to show the car industry in a high-publicity event who’s in charge of the emissions scandal – the state,” writes Nils-Viktor Sorge for Spiegel Online. “The government is under constant ...
The? recent IPCC report ?and this summer's record temperatures show the urgency of climate action, writes Annette Prosinger in a commentary for the conservative daily Die Welt. “To stop Earth’s warming, we need a radical transformation of nearly all ...
31 May 2019, 13:40 S?ren Amelang Climate & CO2 Elections & Politics Euractiv German Chancellor Angela Merkel urged the world to do “everything humanly possible” to combat climate change and pledged to do her part,? reports Euractiv. “Climate ...
A farmer family from Germany has sued the federal government for failing to take adequate climate action and damaging the family’s economic livelihood, the newspaper Tagesspiegel reports. The extreme drought in large parts of Germany in 2018 has caused ...
The “market slump” in the German wind power sector, which continues to lead to job cuts at manufacturers and suppliers, is caused by government regulation, writes the German Wind Energy Association (BWE) in a press release. “On the one hand, the federal ...
Big cities around the world have a special and urgent responsibility to press ahead in the fight against global warming, Berlin’s Green energy senator Ramona Pop says in a guest article for the Berliner Zeitung. If the federal government fails to give the ...
The debate between politicians and scientists in one of Germany’s most popular political talk shows – Anne Will – makes clear that this year’s heat wave and resulting draught is unlikely to fundamentally change Germany’s climate policy, writes Joachim ...
The rise in the price of carbon emissions, coal, and gas means that new onshore wind and solar can compete with the short term-costs of generating electricity from existing hard coal and gas plants for the first time, writes Dave Jones in an analysis for ...
Scientists from a group of research institutes, including the Wuppertal Institute and Fraunhofer ISI, have presented their report “Technologies for the Energy Transition” to the federal economy ministry. The report examines the status quo, expectations, ...
Germany Chancellor Angela Merkel has never really been a “climate chancellor,” the head of the Marine Meteorology Research Unit at Geomar Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Mojib Latif, said in an interview with Die Welt. “Whenever the ...
Germany’s finance minister and vice chancellor Olaf Scholz has shot down a plan by environment minister Svenja Schulze to introduce ambitious emissions reduction standards across the EU in order to meet the climate targets agreed on in the Paris Agreement ...
The federal state of Baden-Württemberg is holding talks with the federal government in preparation for driving bans for older diesel cars in the city of Stuttgart, according to a dpa article carried by Handelsblatt. Baden-Württemberg State Premier ...
The environment ministers of the EU member states have agreed to seek more ambitious CO? car emission cuts by 2030 than both the European Commission and the German government had initially proposed. Average CO? emissions of new passenger cars registered ...
Power transmission grid operator Amprion and gas transmission grid operator Open Grid Europe (OGE) want to test power-to-gas (PtG) technologies on an industrial scale in Germany to better integrate electricity with the other sectors, the companies ...
A premature phase-out of the lignite industry doesn’t make “climate policy sense,” it is “humbug,” writes Germany’s former economy and employment minister Wolfgang Clement in an opinion piece in the Handelsblatt. He argues that the legal end date for ...
The southern German federal state Hesse has become the third in the country to make its so-called “disadvantaged areas” available for solar fields, the German Solar Industry Association (BSW) has announced in a press release. Following in the footsteps of ...
Germany’s politicians and companies are squandering the country’s leading role in climate protection even though the energy transition can benefit the economy, according to a ten-page special report in business daily Handelsblatt by Silke Kersting and ...
Banning older diesel cars from inner cities will only worsen the air pollution problem and carbon emissions in the long run and should therefore be avoided as much as possible, Gerd Landsberg, head of the German Association of Towns and Municipalities ...
Each federal ministry must come up with a plan to help achieve the country’s 2030 climate goals by the end of 2018, Environment Minister Svenja Schulze writes in a guest article for Tagesspiegel Background. The federal government’s climate protection law, ...
The number of electric cars in Germany could rise to between 23 and 29 million by 2040, and building the necessary charging infrastructure will be a business worth billions of euros, according to a study conducted by Aurora Energy Research comparing the ...
In Art & Coal, a major exhibition in Germany’s Ruhr region, artists explore the 900-year-old culture of coal mining as the country’s last two mines prepare to close, writes Sunaina Kumar in an article for the online art magazine and blog website ...
The state government of Baden-Württemberg is to introduce driving bans for the most polluting diesel vehicles in the state capital Stuttgart from 1 January 2019. Baden-Württemberg is the home state of German carmakers Daimler and Porsche. Diesel vehicles ...
29 Nov 2018, 15:38 Julian Wettengel 91tv 91tv Coal Climate & CO2 Fossil fuels 91tv The members of Germany’s coal exit commission are “willing to work together constructively to find solutions”, but the conditions are “chaotic ...
The Social Democratic Party (SPD), the junior partner in Germany's coalition government, has criticised Economy and Energy Minister Peter Altmaier, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), for failing to take action on ...
The German hydrogen electrolysis sector must become a “gigawatt industry” for Germany to reach its climate targets, according to a new study by Fraunhofer ISE, Fraunhofer IPA and E4tech, commissioned by the federal transport ministry (BMVI). The ...
Several associations and NGOs have called on economy minister Peter Altmaier and interior and building minister Horst Seehofer not to soften existing energy efficiency standards with the planned Building Energy Law (GEG). In a joint letter, Environmental ...
A sober look at German carmakers and utilities reveals that their constant talk about sustainability is not backed up by actions, writes Bert Fr?ndhoff in a commentary for the business website Handelsblatt Global. The car industry provided the best ...
27 Nov 2018, 15:07 Sven Egenter 91tv 91tv Climate & CO2 Society Government Germany will ultimately need a price on greenhouse gas emissions across all sectors that does not overburden citizens with lower incomes in order to complete its ...
Daimler, Volkswagen, and other car manufacturers are investing billions of euros in the production of more than 200 hundred electric vehicle models between now and 2022, and that comes at a high cost, writes Franz Hubik in a commentary for Handelsblatt. ...
21 Jan 2019, 13:43 Julian Wettengel 91tv 91tv Climate & CO2 Bloomberg Researchers say low water levels on Germany’s Rhine river after 2018’s long summer drought could occur more frequently as a result of climate change, William Wilkes, ...
German welfare recipients do not receive enough money from the government to pay for electricity, according to the consumer protection organisation Verbraucherzentrale North Rhine-Westphalia. The organisation’s "North Rhine-Westphalia fights energy ...
06 Dec 2018, 14:24 Expert VW- Volkswagen Transport Cars S?ren Amelang 91tv 91tv Cars Business & Jobs Technology 91tv VW has said it will sell combustion engines until the early 2040s, toning down media reports that it will ...
06 Feb 2019, 13:43 Benjamin Wehrmann 91tv 91tv Solar Utilities 91tv / pv magazine Utility EnBW plans to build Germany’s largest solar power farm a nd intends to run the installation without claiming any support payments in a ...
The European Commission is taking Germany to court for its alleged failure to properly implement the Electricity and Gas Directives of the Third Energy Package, according to a Commission press release. The package, in effect since 2009, establishes the ...
Exiting coal-fired power production will be the litmus test of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s climate policy record, write Bloomberg’s Brian Parkin and William Wilkes. “Merkel will want a credible end date for coal to burnish her reputation as a ...
In order for Germany to meet its 2030 emissions reduction target, a rapid phase-out of coal-fired electricity generation is needed across the country, but especially in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), according to a report published by ...
The construction of new offshore wind farms is revitalising German communities on the North Sea coast, Stefan Reccius reports for Handelsblatt Global. Wind turbine technicians are filling hotels that had been suffering from a decline in tourism and ...
Wind turbines in Germany should not be illuminated throughout the whole night as this would gravely impede the acceptance of wind power by local residents, the conservative CDU’s deputy parliamentary group leader Carsten Linnemann told the Frankfurter ...
Germany needs to phase out coal-fired power generation by 2030 to meet its obligations under the Paris Agreement and help limit global warming to 1.5° Celsius, according to a report by Berlin-based non-profit climate science and policy institute Climate ...
The German federal government’s uncertainty about how to achieve a 65 percent share of renewable energy by 2030 “speaks for itself,” said Sandra Weeser, head of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) faction on the federal parliament’s (Budestag) Committee on ...
German wind power companies should not repeat the solar industry’s mistakes, and need to focus more on international markets, Kathrin Witsch writes in an opinion piece for Handelsblatt. Germany’s renewables auction system and a general drop in support ...
23 Apr 2019, 13:46 Kerstine Appunn Climate & CO2 Energiewende International Handelsblatt Despite EU Commissioner Maros Sefcovic announcing this month that the European energy union has become reality, unifying Europe’s big energy markets is more an ...
As Germany moves forward with renewable energy deployment, the country should both preserve nature and allow for the development of landscapes, according to a new project published by the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation. At present, landscape ...
By the end of 2017, renewables expansion in Germany exceeded targets by a considerable margin, but the country still lags behind on several other energy transition indicators, writes Hubertus Bardt for the industry-sponsored research institute IW K?ln in ...
Nearly 100 civil society organisations from across the world – including Greenpeace International, Banktrack, 250.org, Climate Action Network and E3G – have sent a joint letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel, urging her to intervene in the escalating ...
02 Jan 2019, 13:10 Expert CDU- Christian Democratic Union Christlich Demokratische Union Policy Elections & Politics Expert CSU- Christian Social Union Christlich Soziale Union in Bayern Policy Elections & Politics Sven Egenter 91tv ...
Germany has provided inspiring and visionary leadership on energy and climate for many years, but is now at risk of being left behind, according to former US Vice President Al Gore. While stakeholders met for the first session of Germany’s coal exit ...
The quarrels in Germany’s coal exit commission over a proposed end date for coal-fired power production in 2038 will continue to weigh on the country’s reputation as a progressive energy transition advocate, Thorsten Preuschgas, CEO at solar power project ...
The lignite reserves already permitted for mining in Germany are enough to almost completely exhaust the remaining CO 2-budget of the country’s energy sector, environmental organisation WWF Germany says in a short report for the German coal exit ...
German energy think tank Agora Energiewende*, together with the Institute for Applied Ecology (?ko-Institut), has published a new analysis of the recent reforms to the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS). After remaining in the single digits for years, the ...
Several German federal states have revamped their approach towards the energy transition and climate protection. In a joint initiative, the states of Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate are calling for a reform of Germany’s Renewable Energy Act (EEG) to speed ...
04 Jun 2019, 13:30 S?ren Amelang Storage Start-ups Business & Jobs Süddeutsche Zeitung German home battery specialist Sonnen, one of Germany’s most prominent energy transition start-ups, which was taken over by Shell earlier this year, wants to become ...
Autonomous vehicles will make road transport both safer and more environmentally friendly, according to a study commissioned by the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK). For that reason, the development of autonomous vehicle ...
Costs stemming from differences in regulation in individual countries have the potential to distort an otherwise competitive level playing field in cross-border renewable energy auctions in Northwestern Europe, writes energy think tank Agora Energiewende* ...
As the European Union is preparing to introduce new rules that will limit CO 2 emissions from cars and vans between 2021 and 2030, environment minister Svenja Schulze has called for these limits to be strict. “The transport sector is our problem child,” ...
Energy transition communication platform Renewable Energy Agency (AEE) has published the 2018 edition of its renewable status reports for the 16 German states. The reports contain information about the states’ different Energiewende concepts, best ...
Lignite is still of economic significance in Germany’s brown coal regions, and the coal phase-out must be actively managed especially in the economically weak eastern German region of Lusatia, writes the Rhineland-Westphalia Institute for Economic ...
In an interview with public broadcaster ARD, German Chancellor Angela Merkel criticised the proposal for a more ambitious EU greenhouse gas reduction target for 2030 by Miguel Arias Ca?ete, commissioner for climate action and energy. “I am not so happy ...
18 Apr 2019, 12:21 S?ren Amelang Start-ups Utilities Wirtschaftswoche Shell’s acquisition of home battery start-up Sonnen and its plans to become the world’s largest power company worry German utilities, Konrad Fischer and Angela Hennersdorf report for ...
The protests against energy company RWE in that Hambach Forest are directed at a coal lobby that wants to show its power and create precedents, even though clearing the forest is now technically not necessary, Rainer Balcerowiak writes in an opinion piece ...
The government of Luxembourg has written a complaint letter to the European Commission, lamenting the plan of neighbour country Germany to implement hardware retrofits of diesel cars in only a few selected regions for a few car owners, website Spiegel ...
The exceptionally hot and dry summer 2018 in Germany and large parts of Europe has led to a shortage of biogas plants like maize, for which crop yields in some regions have fallen by 50 percent, making the production of biogas more expensive, Andreas ...
Germany’s ruling conservative CDU party says its coalition partner Social Democrats (SPD) have to acknowledge that the expansion of Germany’s renewable energy capacity will be more difficult than initially thought, Focus Online reports. So far, the SPD ...
The German Free Democratic Party (FDP) has proposed doing away with EU emissions limits for passenger cars and freight vehicles and instead including the transport sector in the European Emissions Trading System (ETS), the German parliament says in a ...
26 Apr 2019, 13:03 Expert STEAG Electricity generator Fossil fuels Utilities Kerstine Appunn Utilities WirtschaftsWoche Utility Steag, which operates one of Germany’s largest coal plant fleets could find a new partial owner in waste company Remondis, ...
15 Mar 2019, 13:47 Benjamin Wehrmann 91tv 91tv Energiewende International Clean Technica The negative view of Germany’s energy transition that includes a phase-out of nuclear power held by many US observers is unwarranted and should be ...
Instead of pushing for a coal phase-out, Germany should reduce its carbon emissions from transport and housing, Saxony-Anhalt State Premier Reiner Haseloff said, according to a dpa article carried by Berliner Morgenpost. An observer in the recently formed ...
Bavarian state premier Markus S?der and his ministers are planning to expand existing measures, such as building insulation, support for community climate action, and growth of renewable energies, in order to fight climate change, they announced after a ...
The drop in costs for renewable energy production will transform the global energy landscape and also alter the geopolitical clout of different countries, with Germany, the US, and China standing to benefit most from a worldwide transition from fossil ...
A coal exit in Cottbus, the largest city of one of Germany’s most important coal producing regions, is inevitable, writes Nick Reimer in Zeit Online. The municipal utility’s lignite power plant will be taken off the grid and replaced by a new gas-fired ...
The German wind power industry generated turnover of 17.7 billion euros in 2016, making it “the most important pillar in the green economy”, Germany’s Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) says in a press release. Manufacturing, installation and ...
The exceptionally sunny weather in Germany is lavishing owners of solar panels with a lot of money, according to an article published on Welt Online. However, the rate of remuneration varies widely: those who installed solar panels in the early 2000s ...
The German Green Party fears that the government could cancel two special auctions for wind and solar power projects that the governing CDU/CSU alliance and the Social Democrats (SPD) promised in its coalition treaty, the German Federal Parliament says in ...
Municipal utility NEW from western Germany will join the growing ranks of e-car manufacturers, Florian Rinke writes in the Rheinische Post. The small utility has invested about 2.5 million euros in the company Share2Drive from Aachen, which has developed ...
Daimler’s use of illegal software to manipulate car emissions is even more outrageous than VW’s, writes Matthias Breitinger in a commentary for Zeit Online. This is because Daimler had insisted for years that it did not cheat, and also because the ...
As negotiators are hammering out the rules for a global scheme to slow the growth in the airline industry’s carbon dioxide emissions, the airline lobby is calling for an end to the inclusion of the aviation sector in the EU’s Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS ...
Several German newspapers discuss the option of a possible regional government coalition between the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Green Party after the Bavaria state elections. In an opinion piece in the Mittelbayrische Zeitung, ...
29 Nov 2018, 15:59 Benjamin Wehrmann 91tv 91tv Nuclear phase-out International dpa / Focus Online The decision to shut down Fessenheim, the oldest nuclear reactor in France, by mid-2020 that French President Emanuel Macron announced in a ...
05 Jun 2018, 00:00 Germany's energy minister Peter Altmaier said there won't be any changes to fees on power and heat during his term, refuting the idea of a price for CO2 emissions floated by coalition partner SPD and the environment ministry. ...
Parliamentarians from the German opposition Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the Greens took aim at the government’s policies pertaining to energy and the climate, and to the international context of the country’s energy transition, the Energiewende. At a ...
12 Feb 2019, 12:59 S?ren Amelang Coal Bild Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has privately warned that the country’s coal exit will fail without “enormous effort,” Ralf Schuler reports for tabloid Bild. “We have to really want this,” Merkel said at a ...
Germany’s environment minister, Svenja Schulze, has weighed in on the dispute between environmental groups and energy company RWE over the expansion of a lignite mine and the clearing of a nearby forest, tagesschau.de reports. “If we want to achieve a ...
Germany would close about half of its coal-fired power generation capacity by 2030 on economic grounds alone if the price of EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) allowances remained above its current level of 25 euros per tonne of CO?, economist Andreas ...
Though Germany has championed the use of clean energy, the country is struggling with the phase-out of lignite, one of its most important energy sources to date, writes Michelle Hackman in an article in the Wall Street Journal. It is an energy source ...
11 Dec 2018, 13:37 S?ren Amelang 91tv 91tv Cars Reuters / Transport & Environment Due to German and Austrian resistance to more ambitious car emission limits, the European Union has failed to reach a compromise over how sharply to curb ...
Uber will expand its Berlin fleet with electric vehicles this fall, according to an article in Handelsblatt. Since March, the controversial ride-sharing company has been chauffeuring its Munich customers with roughly 30 battery-powered cars. In light of ...
29 Apr 2019, 13:42 Expert DWD- Germany's National Meteorological Service Deutscher Wetterdienst Climate & CO2 Julian Wettengel Climate & CO2 91tv April 2019 is the 13th consecutive month with warmer than average weather in ...
German solar companies and research organisations are calling for an effective industrial policy strategy to strengthen the domestic solar business and avoid an exodus of companies to Asia. In an open letter to the federal government, more than 30 ...
The Federal Offices for the Protection of the Constitution and for Information Security have warned energy companies of a wave of attacks launched by Russian hackers on electricity networks,? tagesschau.de ?reports. According to German authorities, ...
The star of Germany as a climate action leader has been descending for several years, not least due to its rigid stance on phasing out nuclear power and filling the energy generation gap with carbon-intensive coal power, Michael Shellenberger writes for ...
Germany needs to rapidly and decisively reduce its coal-fired power generation capacity by roughly 50 percent to meet its 2020 emissions reduction target, writes the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) in a letter addressed to economy minister Peter ...
VW CEO Herbert Diess should not point his finger at other car suppliers when he calls for the start of e-vehicle battery cell production in Europe, writes Markus Fasse in an opinion piece in the Handelsblatt. Volkswagen itself also had a responsibility in ...
Many diesel cars affected by the looming driving bans in Germany for having too high exhaust emissions are being exported to eastern Europe and especially to Poland, where anti-pollution policies still are less severe, the NGO Transport & Environment ...
After the German federal government decided on 27 July to buy a 20 percent stake in north-east German transmission grid operator 50Hertz in order to protect this critical infrastructure from being partially owned by Chinese grid operator SGCC, the head of ...
24 May 2019, 13:32 Benjamin Wehrmann Cars Business & Jobs 91tv German carmaker Audi has announced the goal of selling one million electric cars per year by the mid-2020s and to offer 30 e-car models by that time, with 20 models being ...
As Germany’s coal commission prepares to convene for the first time on Tuesday, environmental groups are criticising the government’s slow action on combatting climate change, writes Malte Kreutzfeldt in the taz. Organised by environmental groups like ...
Employing power-to-gas technologies (PtG) help to achieve Germany’s 2050 climate targets in the most cost-efficient way, writes the German Association of Gas and Water (DVGW) in a press release. The association commissioned a meta-analysis by consultancy ...
Experts commissioned by the German federal government at the diesel summit in 2017 agree that diesel vehicle hardware retrofitting is an effective measure to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions, reports the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. However, they are ...
German Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated her proposal to adapt Germany’s emissions law to prevent diesel driving bans in cities where nitrogen oxide limits are only slightly exceeded. In an interview with public broadcaster hr-iNFO, Merkel said this ...
Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change (MCC) addresses the global coal phase-out in a new, short, overview policy brief. The main measures to help phase out coal are the abolishment of fossil-fuel subsidies, the introduction of ...
The construction of wind power plants in the German state of Hesse could upset fans of Grimms' fairy tales as one of their stories’ favourite locations, the Reinhardswald, could become a wind farm location, Güven Purtul writes on Worldcrunch. While ...
The German coastal city of Bremerhaven used to be a thriving centre for the offshore wind power but now struggles to hold on to the sector’s few remaining companies, Peter Hanuschke writes for the Weser Kurier. Bremerhaven once hosted about 3,000 jobs in ...
Several thousand people gathered over the weekend at the embattled Hambach Forest in western Germany to protest against the expansion of a nearby coal mine and the forest’s clearing, the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung reports. According to the organisers ...
Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess has told employees that the company’s managers should swap their staff cars for e-cars, Nicolaus Doll writes in Welt Online. According to the article, Diess told VW managers that the company would not be able to convince ...
Through a new online programme, house owners in the south German town of Freising can now determine if their roofs are suitable for solar panels, and how much it would cost to install them, according to an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. A ...
The conservative (CDU/CSU) parliamentary group said the EU Commission should instead support German efforts to improve air quality. “The lawsuit is the exact opposite of that,” transport spokesperson Daniela Ludwig said. “This is beyond my comprehension. ...
A new study by WWF Germany and Foundation 2° examines the effects of a “below two degrees climate path” on economic risks and opportunities for companies in the automobile and chemical industries. Businesses must include climate and energy targets in ...
German environment minister Svenja Schulze backs? Chancellor Angela Merkel position on the European Commission’s proposal to raise the 2030 greenhouse gas reduction target. “We have set goals for 2020, which we will not reach. To then say ‘we will set ...
Germany should invest more money in climate protection in other parts of the world by, for example, buying rain forests, Christian Lindner, head of the economic liberal Free Democrats, told the news site t-online.de, according to an article in the ...
In the fight against pollution from diesel cars and with EU fines looming, five German model cities want to make their public transport systems better and cheaper. At a press conference with transport minister Andreas Scheuer (CSU) and environment ...
In the row over the expansion of a lignite mine and the clearing of a nearby forest, German economy and energy minister Peter Altmaier said that “solutions can only be found through negotiations and talks, and not in public debates,” news agency Reuters ...
The German government denies a report by news website Spiegel Online that the country's coal exit commission will propose to initiate the fossil fuel's phase-out in the west of the country and favours to finish it by 2035. Germany’s economy and ...
Germany could see a substantial drop in wind power expansion in the next years, Kathrin Witsch writes for the Handelsblatt. Capacity growth could drop from 6,500 megawatts (MW) in 2017 to merely 1,100 in 2019, she writes. The introduction of Germany’s ...
The self-inflicted emissions scandal alone is a huge challenge for Daimler, BMW, Volkswagen and Porsche, write Nikolaus Doll and Philipp Vetter for Die Welt. But the carmakers are also struggling with the shift to electric mobility, the conflict over US ...
More than 40 percent of German consumers don’t know how many kilowatt-hours of electricity they consumed or how much they paid for it last year, price comparison website Verivox says in a press release. A third of respondents to a Verivox survey had a ...
Renewable energy financing by the Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank, a bank that provides refinancing for agriculture and rural areas, plummeted in the first half of 2018 compared to the same period last year, the bank said in a press release. “Changes in ...
German energy company RWE may be legally entitled to proceed with the expansion of its lignite mine near the Hambach Forest and to have police remove protesters, but the conditions that led to RWE’s license for expansion “have changed dramatically,” ...
In the lead-up to the next climate change conference (COP24) in Katowice, Poland, in December, the EU is focussing on its global leadership role in the areas of energy and climate policy, writes Susanne Ehlerding in Tagesspiegel Background. For that ...
In 2020, stricter environmental regulations concerning pollution from seagoing vessels will come into force, putting added pressure on the German shipbuilding industry to innovate, according to an article in tageszeitung (taz). The industry is currently ...
Germany’s first diesel driving ban on two thoroughfares in Hamburg is no more than “ gesture politics,” because numerous exceptions are granted to residents, suppliers, and many others, writes Martin Gropp in a commentary for the Frankfurter Allgemeine ...
02 Jan 2019, 13:23 Julian Wettengel 91tv 91tv Cars SWR Germany’s first extensive all-year driving ban for older diesel vehicles has taken effect in Stuttgart, the hometown of carmakers Daimler and Porsche. Public broadcaster SWR reports that ...
Germany must not enter a coal exit at the expense of power supply security and industrial competitiveness, according to Andreas Pinkwart, economy minister for the west German coal mining state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), and member of the pro ...
While ambitious climate policy is an opportunity for growth and prosperity, the economic costs of inaction “can hardly be quantified, but they are enormous”, said German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the 9 th Petersberg Climate Dialogue in Berlin. “Climate ...
German carmakers Mercedes and Audi enter the e-car market with two e-SUVs, but instead of contributing to reducing emissions in the country’s transport sector, these big and heavy vehicles might even worsen the sector’s climate impact, Christian Wüst ...
The Green Party and environmental NGOs have strongly criticised the government’s choice of leadership for the coal exit commission, Thorsten Knuf reports for Frankfurter Rundschau. The nomination of the former mining state premiers Matthias Platzeck, a ...
The inspiration for the new world of private mobility based on electric cars today comes from the US and China, as Germany, the current carmaker champion, is busy “fighting a messy rearguard action to save the combustion engine,” Tobias Engelmeier writes ...
Spanish-german Wind turbine producer Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy has officially opened a new assembly plant for nacelles, a component for offshore wind turbines, in Cuxhaven, northern Germany. The company says the plant is the country’s “most modern ...
13 Feb 2019, 13:50 S?ren Amelang 91tv 91tv Transport Business & Jobs Handelsblatt German cities are keen to replace their current busses with electric ones, but there aren’t enough German models available, Dieter Fockenbrock reports for ...
Police in the western German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) have started clearing the anti-coal activist camp in the embattled Hambach Forest, the Rheinische Post reports in a live blog. Police set up a perimeter around the forest and started ...
15 Apr 2019, 12:05 Expert Federal Motor Transport Authority Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt Cars Transport Julian Wettengel Cars Bild am Sonntag / Reuters Germany’s motor vehicle authority KBA is investigating Daimler on suspicion that 60,000 Mercedes cars were ...
Germany’s Federal Environment Agency (UBA) has published the English version of its position paper Coal-fired power generation and climate protection until 2030, a discussion contribution for achieving climate targets in Germany, first published in ...
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, campaigning for her party ahead of the regional elections in the federal state of Hesse, said her government aims to amend existing legislation to prevent diesel driving bans in cities where nitrogen oxide limits are only ...
18 Dec 2018, 13:58 Kerstine Appunn 91tv 91tv Energiewende Business & Jobs rbb Former environment minister Jürgen Trittin (Green Party) has heavily criticised energy minister Peter Altmaier for “stifling Germany’s renewables industry”. In ...
Higher prices for emissions allowances and rising gas and coal prices squeezed Vattenfall in the second quarter of 2018, news agency Reuters reports. The company reported a drop in its core business’s operating profit by about 366 million euros, according ...
At an event held by the German Renewable Energy Federation (BEE) on 27 June, parliamentarians from the Free Democratic Party (FDP), the Greens, and the Alternative for Germany (AfD) called the government’s climate and energy policy measures misguided. ...
Synthetic fuels will be competitive with conventional liquid fuels by 2050 and replace oil as the primary ingredient for transport and heating fuels by mid-century, a new study by consultancy Prognos, research institute Fraunhofer UMSICHT and the German ...
Germany can reach its 2020 greenhouse gas reduction target with a delay of three years by taking 9 gigawatts (GW) of lignite-fired power plant capacity offline by 2023 without endangering power supply security, according to a study by Aurora Energy ...
22 Mar 2019, 13:25 Benjamin Wehrmann Storage Cars International 91tv Germany’s largest carmaker, Volkswagen, and Swedish battery producer Northvolt have announced a joint research initiative called the European Battery Union (EBU). Partners ...
The German wind industry has lauded the international optimism regarding the renewable energy source at the global fair WindEnergy Hamburg but complained that the interest of German politicians in this growth sector has faded. Nearly 1,500 exhibitors from ...
German steel company thyssenkrupp has started production of the synthetic fuel methanol from CO? and other emissions in steel production, the company says in a press release. The fuel production from side products of steel smelting is part of the so ...
03 Jan 2019, 12:00 Expert ICCT- International Council on Clean Transportation Transport Julian Wettengel 91tv 91tv Transport Cars ICCT The International Council on Clean Transportation has published a collection of European vehicle market ...
09 May 2019, 13:57 Benjamin Wehrmann Finance AFP / Handelsblatt Allianz, Germany’s leading insurer, aims to make its investments completely climate-neutral by the middle of the century, company CEO OIiver B?te told shareholders, news agency AFP reports. ...
The US has “not deployed the full set of tools yet” to thwart the completion of the natural gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 that connects Germany with Russia, the US ambassador to the EU, Gordon Sondland, said according to an article by news agency Reuters. ...
21 Mar 2019, 12:29 Benjamin Wehrmann Cars Business & Jobs 91tv A group of five major companies has called on the German government to do more to promote electric vehicles (EVs). In a joint initiative under the umbrella of global business ...
The government of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) has stopped the clearing of anti-coal activist camps in Hambach Forest “until further notice” after a journalist fell to his death, writes Der Tagesspiegel. “We cannot simply return to business ...
According to a new study by the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering (IAO), electrifying cars will reduce need for workers in the car industry, including external suppliers to car manufacturers. The researchers looked at three different ...
Auto manufacturers may be inflating their vehicles’ officially-declared CO 2 emissions to lower the ambition of passengers cars’ and vans’ pollution reduction targets, according to an internal European Commission paper. The document, published by ...
The bankruptcy of US investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008 demonstrated the fragility of the global financial system, and ten years later it is time to recognise that neglecting climate risks could trigger another financial crisis, the ...
27 Jul 2018, 13:55 Germany's coal mines seen from space, the talk on electric cars and Chinese-German battery production cooperation- 91tv's 2018 visiting cartoonist Mwelwa Musonko presents his view of the Energiewende and its many big and small ...
21 Mar 2019, 12:30 Benjamin Wehrmann Wind Business & Jobs Recharge News German wind turbine producer Senvion will shut down operations in about 30 countries around the world and focus on 20 “key markets” in Europe, Latin America and elsewhere, Bernd ...
Energy-intensive companies in Germany need competitive power prices to survive in the global market, Angela Hennersdorf writes for WirtschaftsWoche Online. Energy costs were among the main cost factors for companies such as metal provider Aurubis, ...
In an international ranking compiled by the US non-profit organisation ACEEE, Germany and Italy came first for being the most energy efficient countries among the world’s 25 largest energy consumers. While “no country came close to a perfect score” of 100 ...
Manipulated diesel cars in Germany will need a mechanical engine retrofitting to ensure the European Union does not sue the country over exceeding emissions levels in transport for several years, environment minister Svenja Schulze says in an interview ...
11 May 2018, 00:00 The climate talks in the city of Bonn failed to meet expectations they would deliver a draft rulebook for the implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement. After eleven days of negotiations, an extra session in Bangkok is now planned in ...
NGOs and Green Party politicians have criticised the environment ministry for failing to meet the deadline to adopt stricter EU limits on pollution from power plants into national law, Benjamin Dierks reports for Deutschlandfunk. Germany was among the ...
Germany can teach Ireland many lessons about how to transition to a low-carbon energy system, writes Margaret Ward in an article in The Irish Times. Its citizen-owned renewable energy projects have created innovative business models and increased support ...
The high implementation rate of solar power projects awarded support in Germany’s renewables auctions is being upheld after the latest implementation period for open area solar arrays closed on 18 August, the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) said in a ...
Daimler’s embroilment in the car emissions manipulation scandal shows that Germany’s most important industry is still miles away from coming clean, writes Markus Balser in a commentary for the Süddeutsche Zeitung entitled “A heavy blow for [Daimler CEO ...
The term “just transition” was used at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue to mean limiting the economic consequences of decarbonisation in regions of industrial countries – a reasonable demand, Bernhard P?tter writes in an opinion piece for tageszeitung (taz ...
Intra-German flights should be completely prohibited and per-person air traffic should be capped, according to environmental and mobility experts, Markus Decker writes in the Frankfurter Rundschau. Air traffic in Germany increased by 2.3 percent in the ...
Due to the end of their 20-year life span of guaranteed support payments, about 20 gigawatt (GW) of wind power capacity in Germany will be retired by 2023 as their operation is no longer profitable, Simone Peter, head of Germany’s Renewable Energy ...
The new head of Germany’s VW, Herbert Diess, “will consistently steer the largest car company in the world towards e-mobility”, Martin Seiwert writes on euractiv.de. Diess’s commitment to e-cars “is an affair of the heart for him”, Seiwert says, arguing ...
German utility Uniper has launched a pilot scheme to produce methane gas from wind power as the country seeks wider uses for renewable energy, reports Vera Eckert for Reuters. The plant, set up five years ago in Germany’s wind-swept Brandenburg state, ...
09 Jan 2019, 12:21 S?ren Amelang 91tv 91tv Climate & CO2 Finance Reuters Forest fires are becoming increasingly likely because of climate change and are bound to cost insurers more than ever, with the deadly fire that ravaged northern ...
In an interview with Silke Kersting and Klaus Stratmann of financial daily Handelsblatt, German environment minister Svenja Schulze warns that the country is facing an uphill battle to achieve its climate protection goals. “We have already lost too much ...
Germany scores poorly in a new ranking of EU member states’ ambition and progress on slowing global warming, according to a press release from Climate Action Network Europe, an umbrella organisation of European civil society groups working to fight ...
The federal government wants to soften the blow of phasing out coal by investing in large battery factories, or Gigafactories, according to an article in Die Welt. In coal-mining areas around the country, these manufacturing facilities could provide a new ...
Customers buying a new passenger car after September 2018 might have to pay a higher motor vehicle tax because of the switch to a new emissions test called the Worldwide Harmonised Light Vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP), writes the Frankfurter Allgemeine ...
The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) is working on draft amendments to the Renewable Energy Act (EEG), the Combined Heat and Power Act (CHP), and other energy laws, writes Hendrik K?stens for Tagesspiegel Background. The ...
21 Feb 2019, 13:27 S?ren Amelang 91tv 91tv Solar 91tv The roll-out of solar thermal installations in Germany slowed down in 2018 despite an ongoing construction boom. The number of new installations dropped to 71,000 from 78,000 ...
Germany is in fourth place in the European Union energy efficiency ranking ODYSSEE-MURE, behind the UK, Ireland and Spain. The ranking scores EU countries on different energy efficiency criteria, such as energy efficiency level, energy efficiency progress ...
The ruling by a German court to stop the clearing of the embattled Hambach Forest has prompted energy company RWE to consider reducing coal extraction at its nearby lignite mine by up to one third, Claus Hecking and Stefan Schultz write on Spiegel Online. ...
The leader of Germany’s junior government coalition partner SPD, Andrea Nahles, has attacked the Green Party, in parliamentary opposition, for pursuing a climate policy “that does not care about people in coal regions,” Veit Medick writes on Spiegel ...
Nord Stream 2 is not just a natural gas pipeline – it is a controversial energy project that has significant geopolitical implications, Michael Stürmer writes in a commentary published in Die Welt. The pipeline divides the EU and the military alliance ...
The benefits of the planned Russian-German gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 outweigh the drawbacks, writes Josef Auer in a commentary for Deutsche Bank Research. It would increase supply security, as fewer countries are involved in transporting gas than before, ...
Germany’s economy and energy minister Peter Altmaier said that current amendment plans for the Renewable Energy Act (EEG) do not yet include “special auctions” for onshore wind and solar PV, which were agreed in the grand coalition treaty, reports ...
A tightening of European limit values for car emissions could spell trouble for Germany’s largest carmaker VW, workers’ council head Bernd Osterloh told journalists, according to Handelsblatt. He said the company would have to sell about one million e ...
The speedy start of the coal exit is more important than finding a final end date, writes the Advisory Council on the Environment (SRU), an expert advisory panel to the government focussing on environmental protection, in a statement. “For the climate, ...
16 Jan 2019, 13:32 S?ren Amelang Cars Reuters VW and Ford are exploring joint development of electric and self-drive technology as part of a wider-ranging partnership, report Ben Klayman and Jan Schwartz for Reuters. “It is no secret that our industry is ...
A whole range of different policies is needed to bring down the emissions arising from basic commodity production in Germany, the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) says in its weekly report. The production and use of basic commodities like ...
With anti-coal protests in the state of Saxony, environmental NGO Greenpeace says that the German government’s policy on coal fuels weather extremes. “The current heat wave is a taste of what awaits us if the CO? emissions are not decreased fast,” said ...
17 May 2018
Organising a “just transition” to a largely decarbonised economy has to become much more of a focus of the political debate, Germany’s largest trade union umbrella group DGB said in a newly adopted decision at its annual congress this week. The DGB is the ...
22 Jan 2019, 13:28 Expert BMW- Bayerische Motoren Werke Bavarian Motor Works Transport Cars Expert Daimler AG Transport Cars Business & Jobs S?ren Amelang 91tv 91tv Cars Handelsblatt Long-time rivals BMW and Daimler are considering ...
04 Jan 2019, 13:33 S?ren Amelang 91tv 91tv Cars dpa / Focus Germany’s business-friendly Free Democrats (FDP) have warned against a one-sided bet on electric mobility in the country’s climate and transport policy. The head of the opposition ...
A report about a proposal by one of Germany’s ? coal commission ? co-heads for a ? coal exit ? by 2038 has caused irritation. Co-chair Ronald ? Pofalla also proposed taking 5-7 gigawatts of coal capacity off-line and into a security reserve by 2020, and ...
26 Feb 2019, 14:27 Rachel Waldholz Cars Society The Verge German car companies have announced major initiatives to promote electric vehicles, but not everyone is convinced, reports US tech site The Verge. Protests in some cities- modelled after the French ...
The parliamentary group of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU party has welcomed the first session of the commission tasked with planning the country’s coal exit, but stressed that “thoroughness must come before speed” in the group’s ...
23 Jan 2019, 13:27 Sven Egenter 91tv 91tv Energiewende Neue Zürcher Zeitung Germany’s approach to exiting coal-fired power generation via a phase-out plan suggested by a stakeholder commission will cost the country more than necessary, ...
20 Dec 2018, 14:01 Expert BDEW-German Association of Energy and Water Industries Bundesverband der Energie- und Wasserwirtschaft Electricity market Business & Jobs Cost & Prices Utilities Kerstine Appunn 91tv 91tv Utilities The ...
German economy minister Peter Altmaier has said that Poland and Germany plan a cooperation on battery cell production, reports Spiegel Online. The production could be located in the eastern German lignite mining region Lusatia and western Poland, writes ...
The costs for power grid stabilising measures rose to a record 1.4 billion euros in 2017 (880 million euros in 2016), says the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) in its report on grid and system security measures. This was due to lagging grid expansion, a ...
The premiers of the German coal mining states of Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) have said they still plan coal mining activities to continue well into the 2040s. In a guest article published in the Handelsblatt on the day of the first meeting of ...
28 Mar 2019, 09:15 S?ren Amelang Start-ups Business & Jobs Technology 91tv One in four startups in Germany contributes to environmental and climate protection, according to a report by the Borderstep Institute for Innovation and ...
28 Jan 2019, 12:48 Kerstine Appunn Solar 91tv Germany has the fourth largest solar PV capacity in the world (46 gigawatt [GW]), German Solar Association (BSW) has said in a press release. But the former front runner has in recent years been ...
The commission tasked with Germany’s coal phase-out should avoid coming up with “quick and symbolic” scenarios to end the use of the fossil power source in the country, Dieter Kempf, president of the influential industry association BDI said in a guest ...
Economy and energy minister Peter Altmaier has proposed quickly retiring five gigawatts of lignite power generation capacity with a view to the country’s ongoing talks about a coal phase-out, sources told the Rheinische Post. In addition, he suggested ...
14 Feb 2019, 13:52 Rachel Waldholz Utilities Handelsblatt A deal by German power companies RWE and E.ON to reshape German energy markets could face resistance from regulators, Jürgen Flauger, Till Hoppe and Jeremy Gray report for business daily ...
The conflict over coal-mining expansion in the Hambach Forest, where police have started evicting anti-coal activists, is becoming an issue that could threaten the stability of Germany’s coal exit commission, news website Spiegel Online writes. Commission ...
A panel of 180 energy market experts is expecting energy prices to rise over the next five years, a survey by research institute Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) has found. In its “Energy Market Barometer,” 80 percent of participants expect ...
Low wholesale power prices and higher prices for CO 2 emission allowances are weighing on Germany's lignite plant operators’ balance sheets, according to an evaluation of the energy information service Tagesspiegel Background, Der Tagesspiegel ...
One of Germany’s largest wind farm operators, wpd AG, is buying up old wind farms that are about to reach the end of their 20-year guaranteed remuneration period to operate the turbines without renewables support, Daniel Wetzel writes on Welt Online. “We ...
24 Apr 2019, 13:41 Expert CSU- Christian Social Union Christlich Soziale Union in Bayern Policy Elections & Politics Rachel Waldholz Gas Security Reuters Manfred Weber, a leading candidate to become the next president of the European Commission, told ...
On a visit to communities affected by new grid development, German energy minister Peter Altmaier said the transition to an energy system based largely on renewables was a project for the whole community that couldn't be implemented by going over ...
The German federal cabinet has decided on a draft law to restrict marine geoengineering, technology involving large-scale technical measures to artificially reduce the atmosphere’s CO 2 concentration, the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature ...
Two-thirds of respondents in a survey in Germany say they will opt for a combustion engine in their next car, trumping alternative engines like hybrid or fully electric by far, consultancy Deloitte says in a press release. While 66 percent of respondents ...
Successful and resolute climate action has a mixed record among European countries, but former trailblazer Germany today is known for trailing behind, Joachim Wille writes in the Frankfurter Rundschau. “There are still EU countries that take climate ...
The German government is planning to establish an expert commission charged with monitoring fracking (hydraulic fracturing) projects in the country, ntv reports. Although no application has yet been filed to test drill, Green MP Julia Verlinden warned in ...
The list of members of Germany’s coal commission is complete, Spiegel Online reports. Gerda Hasselfeldt, the former parliamentary group leader of the CSU, the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU, will reportedly join the ...
The fact that Siemens selling one single large gas turbine to British utility SSE is news shows that the manufacturers must rethink their business and bet more on smaller turbines for decentral use, writes Axel H?pner in an opinion piece in Handelsblatt. ...
23 May 2019, 12:20 Expert UBA- Federal Environment Agency Umweltbundesamt Climate & CO2 Citizens' energy Julian Wettengel Climate & CO2 Business & Jobs 91tv The impact of global climate change in Germany will be felt less ...
Germany will initiate a domestic battery cell production in the framework of the federal government’s upcoming industrial strategy, said economy minister Peter Altmaier at a press conference after a meeting with Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission ...
15 Jan 2019, 11:59 Expert BMWi- Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (until 2021) Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie Renewable Energy Act | EEG 2014 Business & Jobs Cost & Prices Policy Expert Destatis Federal Statistical ...
German wind turbine maker Nordex has booked a fall in revenue and earnings, but its order books swelled in the first half of the year, reports Craig Richard in Windpower Monthly. Sales dropped 36 percent to 957 million euros, while adjusted earnings ...
The climate change campaign group? 350.org ?has launched an international petition demanding an immediate stop to coal expansion and a rapid coal phase-out in Germany. “This petition is being launched ahead of a highly anticipated coal phase-out proposal ...
20 Dec 2018, 14:02 Kerstine Appunn Fossil fuels dpa North Rhine-Westphalia’s state premier, Armin Laschet, expects the coal commission to recommend a shutdown of lignite plants in the Rhineland region “already in the next one, two or three years”, German ...
Germany should optimise the use of existing grid connections in the North Sea to connect as much offshore wind power capacity to the grid as possible, operator Tennet says in a press release. “We can see a clear potential to optimise the use of existing ...
04 Dec 2018, 15:27 S?ren Amelang 91tv 91tv Climate & CO2 International Germany's National Meteorological Service (DWD) 2018 could be Germany’s warmest, driest and sunniest year since weather records began in 1881, writes the Germany& ...
Germany’s transmission system operators are moving ahead with plans to build electricity highways connecting the northern and southern parts of the country, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. Beginning in the middle of the next decade, four lines ...
Only about 20 percent of organic household waste in Germany is used to produce biogas for heating and power generation, writes Ralph Diermann in an article for the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Investment needs and operating costs for the required facilities are ...
German climate policy announcements are the most ambitious among all of the western industrialised nations in the G7 but the country only comes second to last in the group when it comes to ending support for fossil fuel use, the think tank Overseas ...
The average support rate for new onshore wind power projects has slightly increased in Germany’s third auction in 2018, the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) said in a press release. Average support climbed to 6.16 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh), from 5.73 ...
02 Jul 2018, 16:12 “ A Reporter’s Guide to the Energiewende ” offers journalists covering energy and climate policy an overview of key stories, experts/decision-makers and facts on Germany’s landmark effort to mitigate climate change. Click on the link to ...
The federal government has today paved the way for implementing changes to the European Emissions Trading System (EU ETS). The modifications will take effect in 2021. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet has decided on a draft law – which will have to be ...
German e-car pioneer Günther Schuh, founder of the successful e-van company StreetScooter and inventor of the new compact e-car e.GO Life, says he is “optimistic” that there will be more than one million electric cars on the country’s roads by 2022, two ...
10 Jul 2018, 15:01 Wind and solar power, together with other renewable sources, have overtaken coal as Germany’s most important power source, figures released by the industry group BDEW show. But this milestone in the history of the country’s energy ...
Due to the slow progress made in modernising Germany’s power grid to cope with the large number of renewable energy installations, energy politician Jens Koeppen of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU party says the country should stop wind power ...
Germany’s new environment minister, Svenja Schulze, is against driving bans for diesel cars, website bild.de reports. Schulze said driving bans, aimed at curbing air pollution in inner cities, would not “make old diesel cars any cleaner”. Instead, she ...
20 Mar 2019, 13:52 Benjamin Wehrmann 91tv 91tv Coal Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung The western German federal state of Saarland has claimed greater financial support from the federal government for cushioning the effects of the state’s phase ...
German buyers can by now choose between 27 purely electric cars, with the government offering a 4,000-euro premium and tax reliefs. Yet most private individuals still don’t opt for e-cars, RP Online reports. Between January and May this year, 1.43 million ...
The driving bans for older diesel cars on two roads in Hamburg, Germany’s second largest city, might be “miniature driving bans” and not enough to curb air pollution, but they will allow other municipalities and even federal states to follow suit, Kai ...
Blockchain will revolutionise Germany’s energy market, potentially rendering major utilities redundant, Kathrin Witsch and Christine Coester write in a commentary for Handelsblatt Global. The digital ledger technology, which allows users to exchange money ...
The imposition of a carbon fee and dividend – in which a tax is imposed on fossil fuels, with the revenues being returned back to citizens – would be both socially optimal and build public support for carbon pricing, American economist Gilbert Metcalf ...
China’s interest in higher-value exports could put German exporters “under increased competitive pressure,” the Deutsche Bundesbank says in a new monthly report. The publication’s authors expect German manufacturers to face strong competition from China ...
The government should invest in Germany’s power infrastructure so as to achieve energy independence through renewables, Dave Keating writes in a commentary in Forbes. The share of renewables in power generation has risen substantially over the years, but ...
A new report published by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy examines the use and costs of government subsidies in German industry, including controversial areas such as coal production, nuclear waste disposal or industry rebates on energy taxes. ...
Discount supermarket chain Aldi Süd is equipping 28 of its branches along major traffic routes in Germany with electric vehicle charging stations, according to a dpa article carried by Handelsblatt. The move represents a shift from the group’s focus on ...
German heating costs between October 2017 and February 2018 were down several percent compared to the same period the previous year, price comparison website check24 says in a press release. The main reason for lower costs was a “ relatively mild winter,” ...
A “decommissioning wave” of old wind turbines, whose 20 years of guaranteed support payments are up could become an environmental problem, Niklas Zaboji writes for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “There are hints of building law violation, authorities ...
30 Nov 2018, 15:05 Julian Wettengel 91tv 91tv Cars Cities Reuters German carmaker BMW has said that its hybrid cars could be converted to automatically disable the combustion engine when entering inner city areas, reports Reuters. BMW is ...
