Solar and wind power plant – illustrative photo.
Frankfurt – The share of renewable sources in energy consumption in Germany exceeded 50 percent in the first quarter. This follows from data from the energy group BDEW and the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research (ZSW). Germany plans for solar, wind and biomass energy and hydroelectric power to account for 80 percent of the energy mix by 2030.
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Germany is abandoning nuclear power and trying to limit electricity production from coal. It mostly uses gas power plants to back up the grid.
Preliminary figures partly reflected lower energy consumption in the first three months of the year. At the time, electricity use fell 6.4 percent year-on-year to 138.1 terawatt-hours (TWh), BDEW said. In the first three months of last year, renewable sources made up 49.2 percent of the mix.
The data was created according to the European Union's methodology, which calculates the share from use rather than production. This is the method also adopted by the Berlin government for its definitions of climate targets, BDEW said. “Because the share of renewables is measured by their share of total use, lower consumption (of electricity) means a higher relative share and vice versa,” she added.
Energy think tank Ember said this week that across the EU, generated more electricity from renewable sources than from fossil fuels for the first time in winter. Reduced energy demand also contributed to this, leading to a 12 percent drop in fossil fuel production compared to the previous winter. Renewable sources in the winter period (October 2022 to March 2023) produced 40 percent of electricity in the EU, fossil fuels only 37 percent.
