Germany’s net energy imports decrease over past decade while costs go up – analysis

Electrifying transport, industry, and heating alone could cut fossil import costs by about 30 billion euros a year in Germany in the long term, according to a new analysis from sustainability think tank Öko-Institut. 

Germany and the European Union import less energy than they did a decade ago. But both remain heavily reliant on fossil fuel from abroad, leaving their economies exposed to global price swings, the institute found. The researchers tracked foreign trade in coal, crude oil, natural gas, petroleum products, nuclear fuel, biomass and electricity from 2015 to the first half of 2026. International energy prices have fluctuated heavily in the past years against the backdrop of inflation and the ongoing US-Israeli-led war on Iran and Russia’s war on Ukraine.

In Germany, for instance, total energy import volumes fell by a quarter between 2015 and 2025, while net import costs have increased. Germany covers nearly all of its petroleum products and at least 90 percent of its gas demand with imports, according to the Öko-Institut. Although the EU’s energy imports dropped around 10 percent over the past decade, the cost of imports was around a third higher in 2025 than in 2015, coming in at around 399 billion euros. Mineral oils made up the largest share of the bloc’s energy import bill, while gas accounted most for the swings in import costs since 2020, found the report, which was commissioned by environmental group WWF.  

“As long as Germany imports large quantities of oil and gas, the economy remains vulnerable to international price fluctuations,” the Öko-Institut’s research coordinator for energy policy, Felix Matthes, said in a statement. “The analysis clearly shows that the climate-neutral transformation of the energy system not only strengthens climate protection, but also security of supply, as well as the resilience and sovereignty of the German economy and society,” he added. 

The energy crises in 2022 and 2026 have changed the debate about renewables from being seen as a tool to reach climate targets to also being recognised as a way to make energy supply more resilient. Germany plans to reach climate neutrality by 2045, which will mostly rule out the use of fossil fuels in the energy mix. The EU as a whole is aiming for climate neutrality by 2050.