The Federal Environment Agency (UBA) has called for greater expansion of renewable energies in Germany. According to preliminary data from the environmental authority, around nine percent more electricity was generated from renewable sources in 2022 than in the previous year, but this proportion is still below the target set in the Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG). According to UBA, total gross electricity generation from renewables this year will be about 256 terawatt hours (TWh) – down from the target of 269 terawatt hours.
In order to cover the envisaged 80 percent of German gross electricity consumption with renewable electricity in 2030, around 600 terawatt hours of electricity will be required. This means that green electricity generation will have to more than double in the next eight years.
“The expansion targets for photovoltaics and wind energy on land from the EEG 2021 for 2022 were achieved,” said Dirk Messner, President of the Federal Environment Agency, on Monday. “However, the achievement of these first, rather moderately ambitious intermediate steps cannot be regarded as a great success.” It is now urgently necessary to set all possible levers in motion, especially with regard to the expansion of wind energy on land, in order to accelerate the expansion.
According to UBA, the main pillars of renewable electricity production this year were photovoltaics and wind energy: According to this, electricity generation from photovoltaic systems increased significantly by 23 percent to 61 TWh due to the increase in systems in the previous year, but also because of the very sunny weather. At 128 TWh, electricity generation from wind energy was also 12 percent higher than in the previous year with little wind.
In the heating sector, the consumption of renewable energy increased by about 1 percent compared to the previous year. In transport, renewable electricity was used significantly more this year than in 2021, with growth of 15 percent. According to UBA, the figures are an initial estimate based on currently available data – especially in the areas of heat and transport, these are still subject to great uncertainty.
