Germany’s energy transition will require significant imports of green fuels - study

The global energy transition will require the presence of a sizeable international market for synthetic fuels and Germany will have to import significant amounts of green fuels created by converting renewable energy with so-called power-to-x technologies, the head of the World Energy Council Germany, Uwe Franke, said at the industry body’s Energy Day in Berlin. “The age of the dominance of the combustion engine is over, alternatives are coming,” Franke said. But synthetic fuels will remain necessary to meet the emission reduction goals agreed in the Paris climate agreement, he said at the event, where the association presented a roadmap for a global power-to-x market produced by the Frontier Economics consultancy.
To achieve a large international market, the use of technologies that convert electricity into hydrogen, methane, synthetic petrol, etc. must be scaled up, quotas will have to be established, and targets for power-to-x will have to become part of the international climate agreements, the WEC writes. The reasons for Germany’s green fuel import needs are that space for generating electricity from renewables is limited in the country and power-to-x fuels could be produced significantly cheaper in other regions of the world, the report states.

Find the study in English here.

Read a CLEW factsheet on building an integrated energy system here, a factsheet on power-to-gas here and this week’s news on a pilot power-to-x plant by the North Sea here.