Transport sector lagging far behind on Germany’s overall energy efficiency gains – analysis
Clean Energy Wire
Energy efficiency across the German economy improved by more than 50 percent between 1991 and 2024, while the country’s transport sector only saw gains of 19 percent over the same period, according to an analysis by the AG Energiebilanzen (AGEB).
For the economy as a whole, AGEB looked at the average amount of energy it takes to produce 1,000 euros worth of goods or services in Germany. It found that this figure required 2.9 gigajoules (GJ) of energy in 2024, compared to 6 GJ in 1991. Last year's figure is equivalent to 81 litres of heating oil or 805 kilowatt-hours (KWh) of electricity, equalling annual energy efficiency gains of 2.2 percent since 1991.
The economy-wide gains were in large part driven by changes to electricity generation, which used 40 percent less primary energy to generate one kilowatt-hour of electricity in 2024 than it did in 1990, said AGEB in a report. This is in part due to the large amount of renewable energy sources that have been added. These operate at much higher energy efficiency than fossil fuels burned for electricity. Here, a large part of the energy is lost as heat. The commerce, trade and services sector has also made significant energy efficiency gains of 59 percent since 1991, AGEB added.
Germany's energy efficiency law sets the target to reduce primary energy consumption by 39.3 percent by 2030, relative to 2008. As more and more sectors are electrified, with technologies ranging from EVs to heat pumps, energy use will decline because less is wasted as heat. That means only parts of today's consumption of fossil fuels will have to be replaced by renewable energy.
Germany’s transport sector has long been considered a laggard sector when it comes to decarbonisation. Despite improvements in the energy efficiency of combustion engines, and the rise in electric mobility, emissions from the transport sector have remained largely stable since the 1990s, as larger and more fuel-intensive vehicles gained market shares. Germany plans to soon present a revised Climate Action Programme that in particular addresses the lagging transport and buildings sectors.
