Four in five people in Germany approve of the energy transition – KfW

Approval for decarbonisation and the energy transition remains high in Germany, and stabilised this year after losing some support in 2024, state-owned development bank KfW found in its annual energy transition barometer report. With 83 percent of respondents in a survey saying they generally support climate action and the energy transition, support grew slightly from 82 percent in 2024 but remained below the 90 percent support rate it received in 2022, KfW said.

Moreover, fewer households say they want to actively take measures to implement the transition: in 2025, 59 percent of them said they were ready to act individually, compared to 70 percent in 2023 when personal engagement was at its highest.

At the same time, about one third (13.5 million) of the country’s households already use at least one major energy transition technology item such as heat pumps, electric vehicles, or solar panels, an increase of 800,000 households (2%) compared to the year before.

Lower bills thanks to clean technology is a major driver of this trend, KfW said, arguing that this would represent a clear case for increasing carbon pricing in the future. The use of battery systems at home, for example, had increased three-fold in the past two years, the survey showed.

KfW’s ‘Energiewendebarometer‘ found that the low-income households show the lowest readiness to act in the heating sector, where costs were found to be particularly pressing. “Many low income-households face high cost pressure. They have little resources for investing in the energy transition,” commented KfW chief economist Dirk Schumacher. However, focusing on this group would be necessary to keep up popular support for the transition, he argued. “Climate change currently seems to take a back seat in the public debate at the moment. But the general conviction that the topic is very important continues to linger in the population,” Schumacher said.

Over two thirds (64%) of all households in the survey said they use a fossil heating system, compared to 68 percent among low-income households. Concerns about the affordability of heat pumps were the biggest hurdle for making the switch, KfW said. The survey also found that almost one in ten (9%) of households use an electric car, with high-income households being most likely to own one. The transformation is progressing slowly among households in the lower income segment - and rising cost pressures could let the energy transition, the bank concluded.  “Informative and targeted investment support measures can help remedy this situation.”