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Renewable Energie as an economic factor?

September 23, 2014

We talk about the subject with our studio guest, Barbara Praetorius, the vice director of "Agora Energiewende".

https://p.dw.com/p/1DJN1

DW: In 2011 Chancellor Merkel announced the country would phase out nuclear energy - and by 2050 at least 80 percent of Germany’s electricity should come from renewables. Barbara Praetorius, I would like to know: How efficient do energy windfarms actually supply energy-wise for us?

Barbara Praetorius: A lot of energy, and increasingly they produce energy for the German – but not only for Germany. If you look at Denmark for example, they have a third of their electricity generation coming from wind. And other countries are also increasingly investing in wind energy and wind turbines, and also solar energy.

You sound very optimistic there with wind energy. Let me just stick with the offshore wind farm, because certainly here in Germany, it’s been a bit controversial for a few years. And there has been quite a lot of resistance among the population, because for one, you can’t store the energy you harnessed. You need to build a new grid in order to transport the energy from those offshore wind farms all the way across the country down to southern Germany. That costs a lot of money, and it doesn’t look very nice. How do we go about it? How can this be resolved?

It’s definitely a problem. It’s not as costly as one might expect. It’s actually the cheapest way to cope with renewables, which are fluctuating in their energy supply, by nature. It’s actually, it’s a long way to go, but we are optimistic that these generation, that these transportation lines will be built in the end. But you have to find the right ways, and you have to involve the people to talk about why they need to be built.

And that is being done right now, because I can imagine the rest of the world is really watching Germany right now, taking the lead in this green energy revolution. And it is also interesting to see that since Germany decided to phase out nuclear power and go green, the amount of coal, the percentage of coal in Germany’s energy mix, has risen. Now that can’t be quite the right idea, can it?

It’s not so nice. We call it the energy paradox, because on the one side we see about 30 percent of electricity now being generated from renewables, this year, expectedly. And on the other side we see that coal’s been increasing, or has been increasing, to the detriment of gas turbines, or gas power stations, which are too expensive at the moment.

So it’s, basically it all comes down to costs. And that of course is, I mean you need to get industry on board; it has to be right high-up on the agenda for politicians, which sometimes you get the feeling climate change and environmental issues are taking a back seat. How can these issues go on top of the agenda, so that people are willing to pay for it?

It’s apparently on top of the agenda still in many, many states. If you look at the investment in power stations worldwide, you see more renewable investment than you see in conventional power plants. So of course there is the debate around climate protection targets worldwide, on the one side. But on the other side, we have more and more states and countries deciding that they want to increase their share in renewables, for good reasons.

OK, so you are optimistic. Barbara Praetorius, thank you very much for joining us today.

Interview: Monica Jones