News Digest Item
13 Jul 2017

“Cross sector association alliance calls for redistribution of Energiewende costs”

vzbv / bne / DNR / DMB / HDE / German Offshore Wind Energy Foundation

A reform of Germany’s system to finance the country’s Energiewende is needed to distribute costs more fairly and push renewable electricity use in heating and transport, writes a cross-sector alliance of associations in a joint statement. In comparison to energy sources in the heating and transport sectors, electricity today is “heavily burdened” by taxes and levies, which inhibit expanding the energy transition to those two sectors. The group proposes reallocating Renewable Energy Act (EEG) costs according to energy sources and sectors and based on the sources’ CO₂ emissions, which would bring down the EEG surcharge by outsourcing costs for industry exemptions to the federal budget, and abolishing the electricity tax. A CO₂ floor price in the power sector could further help bring down the EEG surcharge, writes the group. The alliance includes consumer, tenant, environment protection and trade associations.

Find the statement in German here.

For more information, see the CLEW factsheet Germany ponders how to finance renewables expansion in the future and the CLEW article German carbon tax most efficient way to meet climate goals – study.

All texts created by the Clean Energy Wire are available under a “Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0)” . They can be copied, shared and made publicly accessible by users so long as they give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made.

Journalism for the energy transition

Get our Newsletter
Join our Network
Find an interviewee