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The average support rate for all successful bidders in Germany’s second onshore wind power auction was 4.28 eurocent per kilowatt hour (ct/kWh). “The average support rate decreased by more than a cent per kilowatt hour, compared to the first round,” said ...
News Digest Item | 15 Aug 2017
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German industry rates energy costs among the worst of all business location factors, but the results have improved since 2014, according to a survey conducted by the Association of German Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DIHK). The improvement was due ...
News Digest Item | 15 Aug 2017
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German utilities RWE, E.ON, and EnBW should use the nuclear fuel tax refunds to prepare their companies for the future, writes Jürgen Flauger in an opinion piece for Handelsblatt. “The one-off effect comes at exactly the right moment and could help ...
News Digest Item | 15 Aug 2017
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Newly created SolarWorld Industries GmbH has officially taken over the production sites of insolvent German manufacturer SolarWorld AG, writes Sandra Enkhardt for pv magazine. “The new company intends to restart activities with 700 MW of annual production ...
News Digest Item | 15 Aug 2017
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel has voiced support for the idea of banning internal combustion engine cars sometime in the future, as planned by other European countries, such as France and the UK. “I cannot name a specific date now, but the approach is ...
News Digest Item | 15 Aug 2017
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Rejecting a European quota for electric vehicles by simply denouncing the idea as “ not well thought out ” is an inadequate answer by Chancellor Angela Merkel, Antje Sirleschtov writes in a commentary for Tagesspiegel. There were indeed many reasons to ...
News Digest Item | 14 Aug 2017
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It is wrong to focus the debate about the future of transport solely on switching from diesel and petrol cars to e-mobility, writes Joachim Wille in an opinion piece in Frankfurter Rundschau. “Besides climate-friendly engines, we need a comprehensive ...
News Digest Item | 14 Aug 2017
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Industry, transport and manufacturing have benefitted from exemptions and rebates in the power sector to the tune of about 17 billion euros, much of which was shouldered by private households, said the SPD-affiliated Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES) in a ...
News Digest Item | 14 Aug 2017
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The option for a so-called Jamaica government coalition of CDU/CSU, Greens and Free Democrats (FDP) should be used if there was a majority for it after the general elections in September, according to CDU parliamentary state secretary in the finance ...
News Digest Item | 14 Aug 2017
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German utility RWE confirmed its 2017 forecast after posting a seven percent increase in earnings in the second half of 2017, and announced it would pay a special dividend of 1 euro a share after having received the nuclear fuel tax refund, writes Guy ...
News Digest Item | 14 Aug 2017
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Distribution grids used to have a reputation as a boring low-profit business but have become a key source of revenue for German utility innogy, Helmut Bünder writes in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Just like its competitor E.ON, the subsidiary of RWE ...
News Digest Item | 14 Aug 2017
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Germany’s Federal Environment Agency (UBA) says the country ought to consider abandoning its diesel fuel tax privilege, news agency dpa reports in an article carried by Berliner Morgenpost. UBA head Maria Krautzberger told newspaper Rheinische Post the ...
News Digest Item | 14 Aug 2017
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The Green Party emphasises the importance of solar power in a position paper ahead of the general elections in September, reports Passauer Neue Presse. “The caps for expansion, feed-in and self-consumption have led to an 80-percent slump in annual ...
News Digest Item | 14 Aug 2017
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel has rejected a proposal by social democratic (SPD) frontrunner Martin Schulz to introduce a mandatory European quota for electric cars, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. “What are we going to do if the quota is not ...
News Digest Item | 14 Aug 2017
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German Social Democratic (SPD) chancellor candidate Martin Schulz’s call for a European e-mobility quota "seems like a shot from a blank gun”, writes Peter Fahrenholz in an opinion piece in Süddeutsche Zeitung. “As a Europe expert, Schulz knows only ...
News Digest Item | 11 Aug 2017
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Greenpeace’s Andrée Böhling welcomed the call for a European e-mobility quota by SPD chancellor candidate Martin Schulz as “a right signal to manufacturers and consumers”, but criticises the lack of a date. “If the chancellor candidate is serious about ...
News Digest Item | 11 Aug 2017
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German holding company Terra E needs 4 billion euros to construct a large battery cell factory that would create about 3,000 jobs, reports Angela Hennersdorf in WirtschaftsWoche. The location – to be decided in September – had to be “close to German ...
News Digest Item | 11 Aug 2017
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Fifty percent of Germans would not consider buying an electric car in the coming years, according to a representative survey by Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach, commissioned by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). Only 30 percent of respondents said ...
News Digest Item | 11 Aug 2017
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Europe needs to triple its current offshore wind installation rate to keep with the Paris Agreement goal of limiting temperature increase to 1.5° Celsius, wrote consultancy Ecofys’s Michiel Müller in a guest article for energy post on 8 August. “Such ...
News Digest Item | 11 Aug 2017
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Social Democratic (SPD) chancellor candidate Martin Schulz calls for a binding European e-mobility quota as a consequence of the diesel scandal, reports Peter Fahrenholz for Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ). “With a binding European e-mobility quota we will ...
News Digest Item | 11 Aug 2017
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The debate about the future of the diesel engine in Germany leaves car leasing providers still largely unfazed, writes Martin Gropp in an article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. A survey by the newspaper had shown that companies were closely observing ...
News Digest Item | 10 Aug 2017
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A number of German energy-intensive and high-revenue companies are postponing investments due to energy policies and regulatory framework in the country, writes Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW Köln) in a policy paper. A total of 9.1 percent of ...
News Digest Item | 10 Aug 2017
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Germany’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) would not agree to a minimum CO₂ price as part of a coalition deal following September’s national election, according to the energy policy spokesman of the CDU parliamentary group Joachim Pfeiffer, ...
News Digest Item | 10 Aug 2017
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There is still a long way to go until the financing mechanisms of the German energy transition are transferred into a sustainable market design, writes Felix Matthes, research coordinator for energy and climate policy at Öko Institut, in a guest ...
News Digest Item | 10 Aug 2017
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Germans are almost all in favour of expanding the use of renewable energy, despite the fact that government subsidies for renewables mean that Germans pay high electricity prices in relation to other European countries, writes David Meyer in an article ...
News Digest Item | 10 Aug 2017
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The coming weeks will see intensified opposition and protest against lignite mining in the western German Rhenish mining district, writes Christoph Parth in a long feature for Zeit Online. A number of protest events are scheduled, and the police also ...
News Digest Item | 10 Aug 2017
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Digitalisation is the “key driver” of a successful energy transition as it is needed to manage a decentral power supply, Heiko von Tschischwitz, founder of renewable power provider LichtBlick, told Handelsblatt. The times of “simple supply” were over and ...
News Digest Item | 10 Aug 2017
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It is still unclear if so-called “environmental bonuses” offered by German car manufacturers to customers switching away from an old diesel car would actually help protect the environment, writes Martin Gropp in an opinion piece for Frankfurter Allgemeine ...
News Digest Item | 09 Aug 2017
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German transport minister Alexander Dobrindt called on foreign carmakers to follow BMW’s, VW’s and Daimler’s example of buyer’s bonuses and introduce “similar measures”, reports Reuters in an article carried by Handelsblatt. Read the article in German ...
News Digest Item | 09 Aug 2017
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Germany did “a fantastic job” working for climate protection at the G20 summit in Hamburg in July, said former US Vice President Al Gore in an interview with German public broadcaster ARD. “I admire Germany’s leadership,” said Gore. “Chancellor [Angela] ...
News Digest Item | 09 Aug 2017
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German car suppliers which are largely still “firmly rooted in traditional car manufacturing” must quickly adapt to the electrification of transport and be willing to cooperate with competitors, or they will “fall by the wayside”, according to an analysis ...
News Digest Item | 09 Aug 2017
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German energy company E.ON said it would increase its dividend next year after a huge government refund on nuclear-fuel tax allowed it to reduce debt by nearly 5 billion euros, writes Guy Chazan for Financial Times. “By continuing to systematically ...
News Digest Item | 09 Aug 2017
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German utility Uniper’s CEO Klaus Schäfer does not see “the advantages of a big consolidation in the market” for his company, he said in a telephone conference when presenting first half year results, writes Helmut Bünder for Frankfurter Allgemeine ...
News Digest Item | 09 Aug 2017
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The diesel emissions debate has “further sparked” customers’ interest in Deutsche Post DHL’s electric delivery van, said the company’s financial head Melanie Kreis in a telephone conference, reports Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Read the article in ...
News Digest Item | 09 Aug 2017
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In an article with many photographs, Elian Hadj-Hamdi for Deutsche Welle takes a look at the impact of coal mining on people and nature in coal mining regions in western Germany. Read the article in English here. For background, read the CLEW factsheet ...
News Digest Item | 09 Aug 2017
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German car manufacturers “outbid each other” with buyer’s bonuses for customers switching away from an old diesel car, writes Henrik Mortsiefer for Tagesspiegel. Volkswagen launched its “environmental programme”, promising up to 10,000 euros on purchasing ...
News Digest Item | 09 Aug 2017
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Lower Saxony, Germany’s largest wind power state and home to carmaker Volkswagen, will hold new elections on 15 October after a Greens party member defected to the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU). The move had cost the current government coalition ...
News Digest Item | 08 Aug 2017
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German energy company and E.ON’s fossil carve-out Uniper raised its earnings outlook for 2017 to an adjusted EBIT of 1-1.2 billion euros, after a “very solid performance” in the first half of the year, Uniper writes in a press release. Christoph Steitz ...
News Digest Item | 08 Aug 2017
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The EU Commission is not planning to introduce e-car sales quotas, said a Commission spokesperson in reaction to reports by German daily Handelsblatt, writes news agency Reuters. Read the article in English here. Find background material on the carmakers ...
News Digest Item | 08 Aug 2017
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Germany on average consumed 121 million litres of diesel fuel every day in 2016, resulting in a record share of diesel in total fuel consumption of 65 percent, reports Germany’s Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). Diesel sales increased 30 percent from ...
News Digest Item | 08 Aug 2017
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German sports car manufacturer Porsche is looking at the possibility to phase out the diesel version for its SUV Cayenne with the upcoming new model, writes Susanne Preuß for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “In regards to diesel, we are examining ...
News Digest Item | 08 Aug 2017
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The transport minister of Austria wants to see new registration of conventional cars phased-out by 2030, writes Handelsblatt. “It is my goal that in 2030, only emissions-free cars will be registered in Austria,” Austrian transport minister Jörg ...
News Digest Item | 08 Aug 2017
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Ninety-five percent of Germans say that increased use and expansion of renewable energy is important or very important, according to a representative survey by Kantar Emnid, commissioned by Renewable Energies Agency (AEE). It also found broad support (65 ...
News Digest Item | 08 Aug 2017
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Germany is not the “poster child” it likes to portray itself as, writes Ursula Weidenfeld in an opinion piece in Tagesspiegel. She points to the German government’s Nord Stream 2 policy, years of electricity loop flows through neighbouring countries, and ...
News Digest Item | 07 Aug 2017
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With an increase of almost 5 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions, the transport sector contributed most to the rise of German energy-related CO₂ emissions in the first half of 2017, compared to the same period last year, according to think tanks Agora ...
News Digest Item | 07 Aug 2017
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The oppositional Social Democrats (SPD) in North Rhine-Westphalia say that the restrictive wind power policy of the new CDU-FDP government coalition endangers 18,000 jobs in the state, reports news agency dpa in an article carried by Aachener Zeitung. The ...
News Digest Item | 07 Aug 2017
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Andreas Mihm takes a closer look at NordLink, a direct power connection between Norway and Germany for the exchange of Norwegian hydropower and German wind energy, in a long article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The more the Energiewende was ...
News Digest Item | 07 Aug 2017
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Software updates for diesel cars, decided at the diesel summit in Berlin, are unlikely to reduce emissions enough and prevent driving bans, writes Christian Lindner, head of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) in a guest commentary in Frankfurter Allgemeine ...
News Digest Item | 07 Aug 2017
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the “de facto leader of the global green caucus” after US President Donald Trump decided to pull out of the Paris Agreement, writes Jamie Horgan in a blog article for The American Interest. But with the nuclear phase-out ...
News Digest Item | 07 Aug 2017
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A consortium led by Germany’s Siemens was picked by the Turkish government as the winning bidder for a one billion US Dollar wind power project, which will increase Turkey's wind energy production by 17 percent, reports Ercan Gurses for Reuters. Read ...
News Digest Item | 04 Aug 2017
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Germany currently faces a “Fukushima moment of the German automobile industry”, Green Party head Cem Özdemir told Ann-Kathrin Büüsker for Deutschlandfunk. Germany now had to invest billions of euros in correcting mistakes, instead of investing in the ...
News Digest Item | 04 Aug 2017
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The buyer’s bonus German carmakers will offer for customers switching away from an old diesel will have little effect, writes Lukas Bay in an article in Handelsblatt. The 2,000-euro bonus incentive wasn’t big enough, said Stefan Bratzel, of the Center of ...
News Digest Item | 04 Aug 2017
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As German carmakers are increasingly under pressure to shift from their flagship diesel engines to electro mobility, China has pulled well ahead of Europe and the United States, Dave Keating writes for Deutsche Welle. China rapidly introduced charging ...
News Digest Item | 04 Aug 2017
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Power generation from renewables increased in all of Germany’s federal states in 2015, according to an analysis by Renewable Energies Agency (AEE). Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania produced more power from renewables than the total ...
News Digest Item | 04 Aug 2017
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The effect on the German economy of the bid to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 will be small and positive, according to an unpublished study by Boston Consulting Group and Prognos, writes Andreas Mihm in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. ...
News Digest Item | 04 Aug 2017
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While Britain, France, Spain and Greece are making steps to end the era of diesel cars, “German auto executives and political leaders meeting in Berlin on Wednesday appeared determined to rescue the technology”, write Melissa Eddy and Jack Ewing in New ...
News Digest Item | 03 Aug 2017
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German carmakers must prove the effectiveness of the measures for better air quality promised at the diesel summit, writes Silke Kersting in an opinion piece for Handelsblatt. “The government must also act” and be strict regarding on-road emissions tests. ...
News Digest Item | 03 Aug 2017
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The German government was much too soft on carmakers at the diesel summit in Berlin, writes Petra Pinzler in an opinion piece for Zeit Online. “In Germany, laws are valid for some, summits are held for others,” writes Pinzler. Even at the summit, ...
News Digest Item | 03 Aug 2017
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The diesel summit is “a beacon of Germany’s lack of digitality” and shows that the country tends to place too much value on improving instead of renewing, writes Sascha Lobo in an article for his column on Spiegel Online. “It is not about the car of the ...
News Digest Item | 03 Aug 2017
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The German discussion about the energy transition is “marked by polarisation, polemic, and misleading reasoning”, writes former energy industry manager Thomas Unnerstall in a guest commentary in Handelsblatt. One side criticises “exploding costs” and “a ...
News Digest Item | 03 Aug 2017
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Coal-fired power generation “looks set to remain the backbone” of Germany’s energy supply, writes Vera Eckert for Reuters. This contrasts with Chancellor Angela Merkel’s international ambition as climate protection role model, she adds. Read the article ...
News Digest Item | 03 Aug 2017
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It is “surprising” that major German banks did so little to finance renewable energy internationally while the country was a driver of the global energy transition, Dirk Messner, Director of the German Development Institute (DIE) told Christian Schaudwet ...
News Digest Item | 03 Aug 2017
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Ecologic criticism of the German agriculture industry plays no role in the campaign for the upcoming general elections, contrary to previous years, writes Jan Grossarth in an opinion piece for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Priorities now lay with topics ...
News Digest Item | 03 Aug 2017
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The diesel scandal is only the tip of the iceberg of the German car industry’s troubles and neither the manufacturers’ CEOs nor Chancellor Angela Merkel have grasped the gravity of the crisis, writes Heribert Prantl in an opinion piece in Süddeutsche ...
News Digest Item | 03 Aug 2017
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Tuesday, 8 August, 2017 Since Germany’s Energiewende shifted into gear in the early 2000s, the renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors have created over a million jobs, many of them in technical branches, such as renewable energy production, power ...
News | 08 Aug 2017
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Wednesday, 2 August, 2017 German carmakers VW, Daimler and BMW – under pressure to act after the diesel emissions scandal – pledged to install emissions control software updates in about 5 million diesel passenger cars, offer buyer’s premiums for ...
News | 02 Aug 2017
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Wednesday, 2 August, 2017 German carmakers have pledged to update the software in some 5 million diesel cars to lower emissions at the so-called "diesel summit", where leaders of the industry met with federal ministers and heads of federal ...
News | 02 Aug 2017
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8 Aug 2017 Most of Germany's highly-skilled workforce has gone through the dual system of vocational education and training (VET). This factsheet explains the basic prinicples of the system. Germany’s dual-track vocational training program, known as ...
Factsheet | 08 Aug 2017
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The federal government will demand at the diesel summit on Wednesday that German carmakers pay for software updates for Euro-5 and Euro-6 diesel cars, according to the draft for the final summit statement, reports Daniel Delhaes in Handelsblatt. It will ...
News Digest Item | 02 Aug 2017
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The German government has the “almost unique opportunity” to make German car manufacturers “finally take decisions” to find a solution for the diesel emissions scandal, writes Peter Fahrenholz in an opinion piece in Süddeutsche Zeitung. The auto industry ...
News Digest Item | 02 Aug 2017
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Diesel remains an option for about one out of three drivers in Germany, according to a poll by statistics service statista. Petrol cars were preferred by the largest share of respondents, topping the list with 71 percent, followed by hybrids with 41 ...
News Digest Item | 02 Aug 2017
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Established energy companies like E.ON and RWE could face a severe loss of power because of the digitalisation of Germany’s energy transition, while new contenders profit, write Jürgen Flauger and Franz Hubik in Handelsblatt. In a long article, Flauger ...
News Digest Item | 02 Aug 2017
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The Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (BAFA) has received 26,589 applications for the e-car buyer’s premium since the official launch on 2 July 2016, according to a statement. The government aims to reach the critical mass of 400,000 ...
News Digest Item | 02 Aug 2017
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The Clean Energy Wire has added a chart showing the development of economic growth, power and energy consumption, and GHG emissions from 1990 – 2016 to its factsheet on Germany’s energy consumption and power mix. Check out the CLEW factsheet Germany’s ...
News Digest Item | 02 Aug 2017
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Germany’s energy transition, or Energiewende, has transformed Germany into a global poster child for green energy, writes Emma Bryce in an article for online environmental magazine Ensia. Germany’s handling of the exit from coal-fired power generation ...
News Digest Item | 02 Aug 2017
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New US sanctions against Russia will have serious consequences for the energy supply in Germany and Europe, writes Kirsten Westphal of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in a guest commentary for Süddeutsche Zeitung. “The ...
News Digest Item | 02 Aug 2017
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Construction of the direct current connection NordLink for the exchange of renewable energy between Germany and Norway has started, writes transmission grid operator (TSO) TenneT in a press release. “For the first time, the interconnector will directly ...
News Digest Item | 02 Aug 2017
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Price comparison website verivox has looked at Germany’s parties’ election programmes and examined the different proposals on how electricity is to be kept affordable in the future, the company said in a press release. It is striking that “especially the ...
News Digest Item | 02 Aug 2017
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News registrations of hybrids and e-cars rose 104 and 132 percent respectively in July 2017, compared to the same month last year, writes the Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) in a press release. This amounted to about 3 percent of all new passenger ...
News Digest Item | 02 Aug 2017
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Germany’s rising consumption of oil, gas and lignite in the first half of 2017 indicates that the country of the Energiewende will see another increase in emissions in 2017 after a rise in 2016, said Agora Energiewende * head Patrick Graichen. “The data ...
News Digest Item | 02 Aug 2017
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Germany’s federal government plans to present a joint list of demands to German carmakers at the national diesel summit on 2 August, a spokesperson for the environment ministry (BMUB) told journalists in Berlin on Monday. The inviting transport and ...
News Digest Item | 01 Aug 2017
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More than two-thirds of Germans are most worried about climate change ahead of the general elections in September, according to a representative survey by Kantar Emnid commissioned by Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ). The “surprising result” showed ...
News Digest Item | 01 Aug 2017
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The electric car will eventually take over as the dominant type of vehicle in Germany and this shift is going to cost the country jobs but clinging to the combustion engine would nonetheless be a big mistake, Christian Hochfeld, head of transportation ...
News Digest Item | 01 Aug 2017
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Placing Germany’s planned power transmission lines below ground will require a massive material and political effort, Andreas Macho writes in WirtschaftsWoche. The exact location of the two transmission lines SuedLink and SuedOstLink, which are supposed ...
News Digest Item | 01 Aug 2017
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Germany’s parliament decided on allowing tenants to benefit from solar power panels installed on their buildings a few weeks ago and now renters seizing this opportunity say they were able to reduce their power bill with it, news agency dpa reports in an ...
News Digest Item | 01 Aug 2017
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German energy start-up Fresh Energy from Berlin has obtained three million euros in initial funding from renewable utility innogy, itself a carve-out of energy provider RWE, entrepreneurial news site WirtschaftsWoche Gründer reports. Fresh Energy aims to ...
News Digest Item | 01 Aug 2017
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A German coal exit is unlikely to be introduced in the foreseeable future if a coalition of Christian Democrats (CDU), Christian Socialists (CSU) and Free Democrats (FDP) take over the federal government after the September elections, writes klimaretter ...
News Digest Item | 01 Aug 2017
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Germany’s reset of its search for a final nuclear repository, with a new law approved in March 2017, is inhibiting the development of geothermal energy projects and is thus “blocking the way for the heating transition and climate protection”, writes Erwin ...
News Digest Item | 01 Aug 2017
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Germany’s solar market is back on a growth track, with new solar PV installations accounting for a total capacity of 900 megawatts in the first half of 2017, writes the German Solar Industry Association (BSW) in a press release. This was an increase of 75 ...
News Digest Item | 01 Aug 2017
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Energy consumption in Germany increased 0.8 percent in the first half of 2017, compared to the same period in the previous year, due to positive economic development and slightly cooler weather at the beginning of the year, writes energy market research ...
News Digest Item | 01 Aug 2017
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The German Green Party is calling for a cross-party commission to prepare the shift to emissions-free transportation akin to the commission that brokered Germany’s nuclear exit and the transition to renewable energy sources, Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten ...
News Digest Item | 01 Aug 2017
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Monday, 31 July, 2017 Environment minister Barbara Hendricks has been at the helm of Germany's climate protection efforts for the past four years. During her tenure, the country has contributed substantially to brokering the Paris Agreement and put ...
News | 31 Jul 2017
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31 Jul 2017 As more and more countries around the globe announce concrete goals to phase out internal combustion engines in passenger cars, the automobile's birthplace Germany is increasingly embroiled in an affair over exhaust emissions manipulation ...
Factsheet | 31 Jul 2017
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An energy transition in mobility could pose the same challenges for German carmakers that the power transition has posed for big German utilities, writes Michael Bauchmüller in an opinion piece for the Süddeutsche Zeitung. “If the carmakers don’t pay ...
News Digest Item | 31 Jul 2017
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Bavarian state premier Horst Seehofer (the Christian Social Union, or CSU) wants to counter falling diesel car sales by reducing vehicle taxes on “low-emission Euro-6-diesel” cars, reports German weekly Der Spiegel. In a separate article, Spiegel Online ...
News Digest Item | 31 Jul 2017
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It is high-time for Germany to strongly push for the transition to zero-emissions transport, writes Green Party co-chair Cem Özdemir in a guest commentary for Zeit Online. “Pretending” that the end of diesel technology was still decades away is a “highly ...
News Digest Item | 31 Jul 2017
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General diesel driving bans are not a good solution in the emissions debate, as they would basically expropriate German car owners, chairman of Industrial Union of Metalworkers (IG-Metall) Jörg Hofmann told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung in an ...
News Digest Item | 31 Jul 2017
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Germany’s Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA) “sugarcoated” reports on the emissions scandal investigation, bowing to pressure from the auto industry, writes Hanno Kautz in an article for Bild. In the original version of the report from 2016, KBA ...
News Digest Item | 31 Jul 2017
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Friday, 28 July, 2017 On 2 August, the CEOs of Germany’s major car manufacturers will meet with federal and state government representatives to discuss ways to reduce pollution from diesel cars. Recent cartel allegations shed a new light on the meeting’s ...
News | 28 Jul 2017
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District cooling offers property owners a more climate-friendly and potentially cheaper way to cool their buildings on hot summer days, writes Ralph Diermann in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Water running through buildings’ walls is centrally cooled down to ...
News Digest Item | 28 Jul 2017
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Europe’s carmakers can manage the shift to offer clean, competitive and interconnected transport solutions to stay ahead in the global race, EU Commissioner Maros Sefcovic writes in an op-ed for business weekly Wirtschaftswoche. However, the ongoing ...
News Digest Item | 28 Jul 2017
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German environment minister Barbara Hendricks said that today’s court ruling on the legality of driving restrictions to cut down air pollution “confirms my view that carmakers have to avoid driving bans themselves.” Carmakers needed to shift towards other ...
News Digest Item | 28 Jul 2017
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Federal transport minister Alexander Dobrindt announced the recall of certain models of Porsche’s SUV Cayenne equipped with 3-litre diesel engines. It also ordered a registration moratorium for new vehicles, after tests by the ministry (BMVi) and the ...
News Digest Item | 28 Jul 2017
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Friday, 28. July 2017 [Correction, due to mistake in transcription: in reply to 4th question, diesel cars have "always been allowed to emit more NOx than petrol cars", not CO2] On 2 August, the CEOs of Germany’s major car manufacturers will meet ...
News | 28 Jul 2017
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British plans to ban the combustion engine in new cars by 2040 make it clear that a change in propulsion systems was needed, Christian Democratic transport politician and former state transport minister of North Rhine-Westphalia Oliver Wittke told ...
News Digest Item | 27 Jul 2017
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The Green Party not being part of the federal government for the past 12 years is a “medium-sized economic and ecologic disaster”, writes Bernd Ulrich in an opinion piece in German weekly Die Zeit. The current emissions and carmaker cartel scandal showed ...
News Digest Item | 27 Jul 2017
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German utility EnBW reported a 10.9 percent increase in its first-half core profit, citing refunds of a nuclear fuel tax, consolidation of a majority in gas supplier VNG in April 2016, and the sale of an offshore wind park stake, reports Reuters. EnBW is ...
News Digest Item | 27 Jul 2017
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SolarWorld’s provisional insolvency administrator is in talks with a group of investors that may be interested in acquiring the company’s German manufacturing facilities in Freiberg and Arnstadt, according to a company press release, reports pv magazine. ...
News Digest Item | 27 Jul 2017
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Civil protection units in the eastern German city of Dresden “intensively train for a large-scale blackout ”, Thomas Baum-Hartwig writes in Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten. Dresden’s mayor Detlef Sittel said the energy transition had made grids far more ...
News Digest Item | 27 Jul 2017
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German environment minister Barbara Hendricks said the German government was “disappointed” with the country’s major carmakers amid claims they formed a cartel to agree on prices, suppliers and technological standards. It would be a major “loss of trust” ...
News Digest Item | 27 Jul 2017
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VW CEO Matthias Müller said the internal combustion engine “will continue to be needed in a transition period towards e-mobility”. Following talks with German environment minister Barbara Hendricks at his company’s headquarters in Wolfsburg, Müller said ...
News Digest Item | 27 Jul 2017
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Germany saw strong onshore wind power expansion in the first half of 2017, but development could severely slow after the transition phase from set feed-in tariffs to auction-based remuneration by 2019, said German Wind Energy Association (BWE) and ...
News Digest Item | 27 Jul 2017
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The federal German government is currently not planning a combustion engine ban similar to British plans. “A ban of diesel or petrol cars is currently not on the agenda of the federal government. It’s about making possible a low-emission mobility,” a ...
News Digest Item | 27 Jul 2017
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26 Jul 2017 France and the UK are planning to ban all combustion engine sales from 2040. The Clean Energy Wire provides key quotes from German politicians, their parties' national election programmes, and industry players on the future of the ...
Factsheet | 26 Jul 2017
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Wednesday, 26 July, 2017 The SPD, Germany's oldest party, has been a junior partner to Angela Merkel's conservative union in the grand coalition since 2013. The Social Democrats have traditionally been the country's "labour party" ...
News | 26 Jul 2017
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Debates about diesel engines constantly confuse fact with fiction, family enterprise lobbyist Lutz Goebel writes in an opinion piece for Handelsblatt. Regardless of the cartel allegations against Germany’s most important carmakers, seeing the shift to e ...
News Digest Item | 26 Jul 2017
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British plans to ban all new petrol and diesel cars and vans from 2040 show that the combustion engine “is dying” and the national German diesel summit next week “already seems like a sad alumni reunion”, writes Greenpeace transport representative Tobias ...
News Digest Item | 26 Jul 2017
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Bavarian carmaker BMW has put a joint e-car charging infrastructure project with carmaker Daimler on hold after Daimler became the first German manufacturer to make a voluntary disclosure to the authorities over cartel allegations, according to company ...
News Digest Item | 26 Jul 2017
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One of Germany’s most famous children’s TV characters weighed in on the car emissions debate, swapping its combustion engine car for a bicycle in a video posted on Twitter. German public broadcaster WDR posted the video which shows the animated mouse from ...
News Digest Item | 26 Jul 2017
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Germany’s consumption of natural gas continued to rise in the first half of 2017, the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW) says in a press release. Since January, Germans burned the equivalent of 516 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) of ...
News Digest Item | 26 Jul 2017
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German power customers demand more green power than domestic wind, solar and biogas installations can provide, prompting energy providers to buy Norwegian certificates that allow them to label their product as “green”, Jens Heitmann writes for ...
News Digest Item | 26 Jul 2017
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Germany’s “headline success story” on climate protection has “a dark underside that is usually overlooked in all the fanfare,” Paul Hockenos writes for CNN Online. The country’s greenhouse gas emissions have “stagnated at about 900 million tonnes” of CO₂ ...
News Digest Item | 26 Jul 2017
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Germany risks “tacitly joining Donald Trump in turning its back on the Paris climate change deal” as the state governments of North Rhine-Westphalia and Brandenburg “have vowed to protect” the lignite mining industry, writes Olaf Storbeck for Reuters ...
News Digest Item | 26 Jul 2017
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German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW) head Stefan Kapferer warns that calls from the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) for recurring compensation payments to farmers if power transmission lines are built on their premises would make ...
News Digest Item | 26 Jul 2017
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Allegations of a cartel of Germany’s most important carmakers to agree on prices, suppliers and technology standards have cost the industry a great deal of credibility, the Green Party state premier of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, has said, ...
News Digest Item | 26 Jul 2017
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German carmaker Daimler was the first of the five major companies accused of forming a cartel to voluntarily disclose their activities to the authorities- anticipating a similar move by competitor and alleged accomplice VW, Thomas Fromm, Georg Mascolo and ...
News Digest Item | 25 Jul 2017
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Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW and automotive industry supplier Continental contribute over 40 percent to the total revenue and one third to the profits of Germany’s stock index DAX, which comprises the country’s 30 largest market-listed companies, Daniel ...
News Digest Item | 25 Jul 2017
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EU Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker is concerned about energy-related measures in the sanction proposals by the US against Russia, reports Ryan Heath for Politico. Juncker believes they could be used unfairly against European energy companies, ...
News Digest Item | 25 Jul 2017
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German Karlsruhe Institute of Technology's (KIT) spin-off company INERATEC has developed a compact power-to-liquid plant’s chemical reactor that converts hydrogen produced from solar power together with carbon dioxide into liquid fuels, writes KIT in ...
News Digest Item | 25 Jul 2017
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The G20 summits will continue to play an important role for climate protection, because “without the pressure on the political level, implementing and monitoring climate targets would hardly be possible in some countries”, write Susanne Dröge and Felix ...
News Digest Item | 25 Jul 2017
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The German government’s decision to determine support payments for bioenergy plants by auctions has almost amounted to “a slam on the brakes” for their operators, news agency dpa reports in an article carried by Handelsblatt Online. Horst Seide, head of ...
News Digest Item | 25 Jul 2017
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If the allegations over a cartel formed by Germany’s five largest carmakers “are just to the slightest extent true, it’s the end of the car industry as we know it”, Markus Fasse writes in a commentary for Handelsblatt Online. Billions in fines, civil ...
News Digest Item | 25 Jul 2017
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Thursday, 27 July, 2017 Germany's most important carmakers have met in "secret workshops" since the 1990s in order to reach agreements on technological standards and prices, according to a report by news magazine Der Spiegel. The companies ...
News | 27 Jul 2017
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Germany’s carmakers might face a wave of lawsuits after reports over possible collusion to fix costs and technology emerged last week, business newspaper Handelsblatt reports. Tens of thousands of customers might seek compensation for “possibly paying a ...
News Digest Item | 24 Jul 2017
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The head of German carmaker Volkswagen told daily Rheinische Post that he can imagine a deal with the government in which the carmakers agree to a phase-out date for diesel engines in return for more support with e-mobility. “If you act with appropriate ...
News Digest Item | 24 Jul 2017
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Excitement over technological innovations and the digitalisation of the energy system are “only one side of the coin” of Germany’s energy transition, Daniel Wetzel writes in weekly newspaper Welt am Sonntag. “The other side is that planners and architects ...
News Digest Item | 24 Jul 2017
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Helmar Rendez, head of Lusatian energy company Leag, is opposed to phasing out lignite-fired power production to protect the climate, Jens Tartler writes in Der Tagesspiegel. “We need to let go of the illusion that Lusatia can save the world’s climate ...
News Digest Item | 24 Jul 2017
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The pro-fossil fuel stance of the new governing coalition in Germany’s most populous state North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) “could be a harbinger for a nationwide U-turn on the country's bold transition to renewable energies”, Marc Etzold and Cordula ...
News Digest Item | 24 Jul 2017
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Germany’s most important carmakers have met in “secret workshops” since the 1990s in order to coordinate their exhaust gas treatment systems and collude to fix technology, costs and suppliers, weekly news magazine Der Spiegel and associated website ...
News Digest Item | 24 Jul 2017
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Switching to less resource-intensive consumption patterns is part of the solution to cutting carbon emissions, Felix Ekardt writes in a guest article for Zeit Online. Germany can only achieve its climate targets if people are willing to reduce their ...
News Digest Item | 21 Jul 2017
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Asked about the future of Germany’s car industry, politicians “only get frank in confidential off-the-record conversations,” Miriam Meckel writes in an opinion piece for WirtschaftsWoche. “That’s when you see very concerned faces.” Politicians often ...
News Digest Item | 21 Jul 2017
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The tough times Germany’s utilities have gone through as a result of the energy transition are coming to an end, with investor confidence in takeovers and rising power prices pushing stocks up, Susanne Schier writes for Handelsblatt. “The Fukushima ...
News Digest Item | 21 Jul 2017
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The European Commission is beginning to lose patience with carmakers and member states over the diesel emissions fraud, Markus Balser and Josef Kelberger write for Süddeutsche Zeitung. EU Industry Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska is calling all cars with ...
News Digest Item | 21 Jul 2017
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German energy bourse EEX has partnered with several Chinese exchanges to get a foothold in China’s emerging national emissions trading scheme, Kathy Chen and Mike Szabo report for Carbon Pulse. The group is advancing plans to offer trade in euro ...
News Digest Item | 21 Jul 2017
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The German government will organise a summit on 2 August with the aim of bundling the different community and state activities to reduce pollution from diesel vehicles at federal level, a spokesperson of the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital ...
News Digest Item | 20 Jul 2017
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The court case in car industry hub Stuttgart on diesel engines’ nitrogen oxide emissions pits the Baden-Wuerttemberg state’s Greens-led transport ministry against the NGO Environmental Action Germany (DUH). This is a case of “Green versus Green”, writes ...
News Digest Item | 20 Jul 2017
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Power generating units with a total capacity of about 13,658 megawatt (MW) are scheduled for closure in Germany, but only about 7,667 MW have already been shut down, the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) has said in a press release. The remainder of nearly ...
News Digest Item | 20 Jul 2017
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Germany’s offshore wind industry calls on the next federal government to increase the expansion corridors for offshore wind to at least 20 gigawatt (GW) by 2030 (at the moment: 15 GW), and to 30 GW by 2035, according to a joint press release issued by ...
News Digest Item | 20 Jul 2017
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Almost every other German plans to spend money on increasing the energy efficiency of their home, Rheinische Post reports. In a survey conducted by Environmental Action Germany (DUH) and heating engineering company Vaillant, 48 percent said they planned ...
News Digest Item | 20 Jul 2017
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A coalition of German NGOs has called on the SPD’s frontrunner for this year’s federal election to explicitly endorse Germany’s climate protection targets, the environmental organisation WWF has said in a press release. The NGOs say the decision by the ...
News Digest Item | 20 Jul 2017
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The energy policy plans of the new government of Germany’s most populous state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) bear the risk that the state “in the medium and long run is left behind as an energy region ”, Peter Berger writes in Kölner Stadtanzeiger. In ...
News Digest Item | 20 Jul 2017
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German energy start-up Conjoule is set to receive about 3.5 million euros from controversial Japanese nuclear plant operator Tepco, Jana Kugoth writes in Welt Online. The operator of the notorious Fukushima nuclear plant, which was severely damaged by an ...
News Digest Item | 20 Jul 2017
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Germany is at risk of being caught in the middle of a looming conflict between Russia and the US over natural gas supplies to Europe, Klaus Stratmann writes in Handelsblatt. “The USA is intent on competing with Russia to become the dominant energy power” ...
News Digest Item | 20 Jul 2017
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Damages discovered at Germany’s Brokdorf nuclear power plant seem to support the theory that nuclear power is not suitable as a bridging technology which could rapidly adapt power generation to the fluctuating supply of renewable electricity, writes ...
News Digest Item | 20 Jul 2017
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In an opinion piece for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Martin Gropp argues that the Green Party's proposal for a ban on the combustion engine is heavy handed, and relying on incentives and carmakers' ingenuity would be more fruitful. “A ban on ...
News Digest Item | 19 Jul 2017
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SPD deputy chairman Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel has called for close cooperation between carmakers and the state to protect jobs as the sector shifts away from fossil fuels, Stephan Haselberger reports for Tagesspiegel. “We have to ensure that e-cars are ...
News Digest Item | 19 Jul 2017
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Porsche may give up diesel engines by the end of the decade, Reuters reports. Porsche CEO Oliver Blume said “we have not made a decision on it,” adding the company was “of course” looking into this issue following the emissions cheating scandal that ...
News Digest Item | 19 Jul 2017
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German car manufacturers are willing to pay for certain upgrades and retrofitting to reduce their diesel cars’ nitrogen oxide emissions and help avoid driving bans, Peter Fahrenholz writes in Süddeutsche Zeitung. BMW and Audi signalled to the Bavarian ...
News Digest Item | 19 Jul 2017
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Closely monitored regulations on the car industry should be implemented on an EU level, as this is “apparently difficult” within Germany, Martin Unfried writes in an opinion piece for tageszeitung (taz). Unfried says the German government is too cosy with ...
News Digest Item | 19 Jul 2017
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The switch to renewable energies will make oil and gas “increasingly less important trump cards” in geopolitical conflicts and lessen energy’s significance “as one of the strategic causes of geopolitical conflicts,” writes German utility E.ON’s CEO ...
News Digest Item | 19 Jul 2017
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German fishermen want to be allowed to fish between offshore wind turbines in the North Sea but operators are worried about insufficient insurance cover in case of damage to their installations, Birger Nicolai and Daniel Wetzel write on Welt Online. ...
News Digest Item | 19 Jul 2017
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With more cooperation on energy infrastructure, European states could counter the risks associated with fluctuating supply of wind power, Ralph Diermann writes on Spiegel Online. According to a study in Nature Climate Change, variable weather conditions ...
News Digest Item | 19 Jul 2017
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German discount supermarket chain Aldi Süd has been honoured by German environment minister Barbara Hendricks for its efforts to integrate climate protection into its business practices, the Federal Ministry for the Environment (BMUB) said in a press ...
News Digest Item | 19 Jul 2017
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A ban on registering new combustion engine passenger cars from 2030 would directly or indirectly affect around 620,000 jobs in Germany – or 10 percent of the country’s industrial workforce, according to a study by Institute for Economic Research (ifo) for ...
News Digest Item | 19 Jul 2017
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The political debate on imposing a ban on diesel engines in German cities continues unabated after the state government in Baden-Württemberg was forced by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure to withdraw a clean air plan, Josef ...
News Digest Item | 17 Jul 2017
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Mandatory CO 2 standards for newly registered trucks and buses in the EU could reduce emissions by about one-quarter, a study conducted by the Berlin-based International Council on Clean Transportation Europe (ICCT) has found. The study argues that there ...
News Digest Item | 17 Jul 2017
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Managers in the utilities sector seem wary of a centre-right coalition of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives and the business-oriented Free Democrats (FDP) after September’s federal election, although the pairing has traditionally been seen ...
News Digest Item | 14 Jul 2017
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Germany is paying a high price for creating jobs in the renewables sector and it is uncertain whether these jobs are sustainable in the long run, Manuel Frondel writes in a guest article for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The econometrist from economic ...
News Digest Item | 14 Jul 2017
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The economy minister of German federal state Brandenburg has called a speedy phase-out of coal-fired power production “utopian”, Märkische Allgemeine reports. SPD-politician Albrecht Gerber said while restructuring the energy system in the long-term was a ...
News Digest Item | 14 Jul 2017
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After years of rising hard coal import volumes due to the closing of domestic mines, Germany seems to decrease its reliance on the fossil fuel, Andreas Macho writes in business weekly WirtschaftsWoche. While Germany continues to be Europe's biggest ...
News Digest Item | 14 Jul 2017
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In light of the latest accusations against German carmaker Daimler of having equipped its vehicles with manipulation software for emissions tests, environment and consumer protection organisation Environmental Action Germany (DUH) is ready to file a ...
News Digest Item | 14 Jul 2017
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The German government has called on China to postpone its planned e-car quota for carmakers, Handelsblatt reports. The four largest carmaker associations from Europe, the US, Japan and South Korea have all requested that China amend the quota and grant ...
News Digest Item | 14 Jul 2017
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The German government should come to realise that the planned gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 from Russia to Germany via the Baltic Sea “will not be implemented” and “save Europe further disputes on this matter”, Green politician Reinhard Bütikofer writes in a ...
News Digest Item | 14 Jul 2017
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The governments of France and Germany have vowed to make cross-sectoral climate protection covering all areas “a priority” of their bilateral activities. In a joint statement by the Franco-German council of ministers, the countries’ leaderships said they ...
News Digest Item | 14 Jul 2017
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After the G20 summit in Hamburg, the governments of France and Germany should use the joint Ministerial Council meeting in Paris to establish the two countries as the “ energy transition motor of the European Union ”, writes Andreas Kuhlmann, chief ...
News Digest Item | 13 Jul 2017
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German carmaker Daimler is accused of having sold more than one million cars with excess emissions for almost a decade, according to a recent search warrant, reports Süddeutsche Zeitung. The company might have used defeat devices in certain motor models ...
News Digest Item | 13 Jul 2017
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More and more carmakers are starting to offer power storage for domestic use in order to have a new source of revenue in times of uncertain e-car sales, Süddeutsche Zeitung writes. In addition to US manufacturer Tesla and Japanese competitor Nissan, ...
News Digest Item | 13 Jul 2017
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German homeowners installed about 25,000 power storages in their houses in 2016, more than in any other European country, but the real boom of “ decentralised power supply ” might only start in 2020, Stefan Mayr writes in Süddeutsche Zeitung. 2020 will be ...
News Digest Item | 13 Jul 2017
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A pilot project by energy provider EWE for solar panels on the balconies of tenant flats has shown that residents use the vast majority of the generated electricity for private use instead of selling it on the market, Michael Fuhs writes in pv magazine. ...
News Digest Item | 13 Jul 2017
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Due to the decommissioning and dismantling of its nuclear power plants, German utility E.ON plans to cut about half of all jobs at its subsidiary PreussenElektra, news agency dpa reports in an article carried by website focus.de. At least 1,000 jobs will ...
News Digest Item | 13 Jul 2017
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The municipal utility of Munich, SWM, is set to merge its natural gas business with a British company by founding a joint subsidiary in a billion-euro deal, Heiner Effern writes in Süddeutsche Zeitung. The name of SWM’s British partner “is still kept a ...
News Digest Item | 13 Jul 2017
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Wind power company Senvion has rejected a workers’ council job recovery plan and is set to move rotor manufacturing for its turbines from the northern German city of Bremerhaven to Portugal, citing increasing international competition and price pressure, ...
News Digest Item | 13 Jul 2017
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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 ...
News Digest Item | 13 Jul 2017
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Thursday, 13 July, 2017 Germany should implement a national tax on carbon emissions in order to meet its own emission reduction targets in the an efficient and straight forward way, the German Renewable Energy Federation (BEE) proposed based on a study by ...
News | 13 Jul 2017
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Germany’s federal elections in September will also be a decision “on the direction of the country’s energy policy” and a lot depends on which parties form a government coalition, Arne Jungjohann writes on website China Dialogue. With near-term [climate ...
News Digest Item | 12 Jul 2017
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Decentralised renewable energy sources increase the importance of local distribution grids for making Germany’s energy transition work, a new study on municipal utilities by consulting agency Ernst & Young (EY) says. Distribution grid operators become ...
News Digest Item | 12 Jul 2017
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The new government coalition of CDU, Greens and FDP in Germany’s northern wind-power state Schleswig-Holstein means many wind power projects will need re-examining, Schleswig-Holsteinische Landeszeitung reports. The federal state’s interior ministry was ...
News Digest Item | 12 Jul 2017
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Six of the top ten industrial polluters regarding CO₂ emissions in the EU are German lignite-fired power plants, according to a European Environment Agency (EEA) briefing. Bełchatów in Poland was responsible for the highest amounts of CO₂. The EEA ...
News Digest Item | 12 Jul 2017
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Climate risks have to be included in company reports, writes Peter Wolff, head of department World Economy and Development Financing at the German Development Institute (DIE), in a guest article in Frankfurter Rundschau. The move was demanded by ...
News Digest Item | 12 Jul 2017
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Three of the remaining eight German nuclear power stations are currently offline, writes renewable energy industry institute IWR in an article on IWR Online. Gundremmingen C and Isar 2 were offline for about a month in the summer for routine inspections, ...
News Digest Item | 12 Jul 2017
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France and Germany should work together on some challenges on the way to a clean energy future- despite differences in the two countries’ energy mixes, write German think tanks Agora Energiewende, Agora Verkehrswende* and French Institute for Sustainable ...
News Digest Item | 12 Jul 2017
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Consumer protection association Environmental Action Germany (DUH) has filed lawsuits against regulatory authorities in ten cities in order to withdraw roadworthiness of VW vehicles affected by the carmaker’s emissions fraud scandal, the association has ...
News Digest Item | 11 Jul 2017
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German prosecutors have expanded their investigations over diesel emissions fraud to sports car manufacturer Porsche, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. The luxury brand subsidiary of Germany’s largest carmaker VW has so far not been in the focus of ...
News Digest Item | 11 Jul 2017
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in May that her government was probably going to miss its goal of putting one million e-cars on the road by 2020- but now the mood seems to have changed, Peter Hannen writes in pv magazine. In a response to a ...
News Digest Item | 11 Jul 2017
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The German Renewable Energy Federation (BEE) will present a proposal to put a tax on the use of fossil fuels in power generation, which would complement the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS), writes Klaus Stratmann in Handelsblatt. A study by consultancy ...
News Digest Item | 11 Jul 2017
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The fact that climate protection has been one of the most discussed topics at the G20 summit in Hamburg is “one of the paradoxical achievements of Donald Trump”, Michael Bauchmüller writes in an opinion piece for Süddeutsche Zeitung. “Alas, the climate ...
News Digest Item | 11 Jul 2017
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Ilse Aigner, economy minister of Germany’s biggest state Bavaria, aims to make lowering power prices a key topic in the coalition negotiations after the general elections in September, reports news agency dpa. She demands a reform of Germany’s renewables ...
News Digest Item | 11 Jul 2017
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The Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS), with the support of the federal economy ministry (BMWi), will invest about 18 million euros in a research project on possible effects on human health by power lines, BfS said in a press release. “So far, ...
News Digest Item | 11 Jul 2017
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The German government will support several research projects on sustainable city development with 100 million euros over the coming five years, the federal economy and research ministries say in a press release. “Six flagship projects are to show how ...
News Digest Item | 11 Jul 2017
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Martin Schulz, the Social Democrats’ (SPD) frontrunner for Germany’s 2017 federal elections, has suggested that the country’s carmakers should not fear a major attack on their diesel technology if he is elected Chancellor in September, Markus Mayr reports ...
News Digest Item | 11 Jul 2017
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The G20 summit’s G19 outcome on climate is “quite acceptable” as Donald Trump was unlikely to change his mind on pulling out of the Paris Agreement, writes Christoph Seidler for Spiegel Online. Little has therefore changed as the countries’ commitments ...
News Digest Item | 10 Jul 2017
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A standstill can still be considered a success during Donald Trump’s time as US president, write Malte Kreutzfeld and Ingo Arzt in an article for tageszeitung (taz). The G20, which isolated Trump on climate, did not bring progress to global climate ...
News Digest Item | 10 Jul 2017
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G20 members commend private commitment to climate risk reporting but do not universally recommend it in the climate and energy action plan, which was annexed to the G20 Hamburg summit leaders’ communiqué, writes Dagmar Dehmer for Tagesspiegel Background. ...
News Digest Item | 10 Jul 2017
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“Climate change and the challenge of defending multilateralism in an era of Trumpian protectionism has finally given Germany a global leadership role,” writes Jennifer Tollmann in a blog article for E3G. US president Donald Trump’s rejection of the ...
News Digest Item | 10 Jul 2017
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The new governing coalition of conservative CDU and economic liberal FDP in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) is set to undermine the country’s climate protection goals, environmental organisation WWF says in a press release. The CDU-FDP coalition agreement ...
News Digest Item | 10 Jul 2017
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The new governing coalition of conservative CDU and economic liberal FDP in Germany's most populous federal state North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) seems intent on curbing wind power expansion but is hit by resistance from the job-creating industry, Guido ...
News Digest Item | 10 Jul 2017
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Most Germans say the costs for renewable energy expansion are not fairly distributed across the country, Thüringische Landeszeitung reports. A representative survey by pollster Kantar Emnid found 59 percent of respondents said the costs paid by power ...
News Digest Item | 10 Jul 2017
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German utility EnBW is to equip the country’s most frequented motorway (Autobahn) service stations with charging stations for e-cars, Bernd Freytag and Susanne Preuß write in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The company wants to have set up 1,000 stations ...
News Digest Item | 10 Jul 2017
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Germany’s two biggest utilities E.ON and RWE, together with smaller energy providers EnBW and Vattenfall, paid over 24 billion euros in June to “finally rid themselves of the consequences of the government-induced nuclear exit”, Thomas Klemm writes in ...
News Digest Item | 10 Jul 2017
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It is “remarkable” that the G20 summit in Hamburg did not end up in scandal given that US President Donald Trump came across like a “grizzly bear among a mountaineering rope team”, writes Stefan Ulrich in an opinion piece for Süddeutsche Zeitung. “Above ...
News Digest Item | 10 Jul 2017
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Saturday, 8 July, 2017 The German presidency and chancellor Angela Merkel pulled off a “solid” diplomatic success on climate policy by closing the ranks of all G20 members except the United States at the summit in Hamburg, experts for climate diplomacy ...
News | 08 Jul 2017
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Saturday, 8 July, 2017 Nineteen members of the G20 group of leading industrialised and emerging economies underscored their commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement, leaving the United States isolated. The US also was the only country to opt-out of a ...
News | 08 Jul 2017
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Tuesday, 11 July, 2017 The G20 group of the leading industrialised and emerging economies has agreed on a statement that shows the commitment of 19 of them to implement the Paris agreement on climate protection, including a first-ever plan for action on ...
News | 11 Jul 2017
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German prosecutors have made the first arrest at carmaker Audi over the emissions fraud scandal, Süddeutsche Zeitung reports. The former engine developer who worked at Audi until a few months ago allegedly helped develop the emissions manipulation ...
News Digest Item | 07 Jul 2017
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The decision by Swedish carmaker Volvo to equip all its cars with electric engines by 2019 demonstrates the rapid change seen in the international automotive industry, Manfred Kriener writes in a commentary for Tageszeitung (taz). “Volvo has understood,” ...
News Digest Item | 07 Jul 2017
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel might enjoy global respect as “leader of the free world” but her current standing also warranted “a more nuanced assessment” of what her country “has done and can do”, Michael Bröning writes in an opinion piece for Politico ...
News Digest Item | 07 Jul 2017
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The significant increase of investments into renewables in G20 countries is insufficient to meet the Paris Climate Agreement’s pledge to keep global warming well below two degrees Celsius, Klaus Stratmann and Silke Kersting write in Handelsblatt Global. ...
News Digest Item | 07 Jul 2017
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The Unesco Heritage Committee wants plans for a wind farm near Lorch in the protected Rhine Gorge World Heritage Site to be abandoned, Barbara Dietel writes in Wiesbadener Tagblatt. The Committee said the planned 212-metre high windmills violated Unesco ...
News Digest Item | 07 Jul 2017
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The G20 leaders must show readiness for compromise at the Hamburg summit, “without bending their own positions too much”, said German Chancellor Angela Merkel during her opening remarks to leaders of the world’s largest economies, ahead of the first ...
News Digest Item | 08 Jul 2017
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The G20 group of leading industrialised and emerging countries have agreed on a joint communique at the summit in Hamburg, though leaders had still to iron out one last “wrinkle” in the climate section, news agency Reuters reported, citing an EU official. ...
News Digest Item | 08 Jul 2017
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Thursday, 6. July 2017 With the US pulling out of the Paris Agreement, China and Germany are making a very public display of leadership on climate protection and transition to green energy. The export heavyweights are eager to keep the global economy on ...
News | 06 Jul 2017
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel says her chief task during Germany’s G20 presidency is to “work on options for an agreement and not contribute to speechlessness". In an interview with weekly newspaper Die Zeit ahead of this year’s G20 summit in ...
News Digest Item | 06 Jul 2017
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A draft of conclusions to the G20 summit in Hamburg contains a compromise on climate protection between the US and other member states, news agency Reuters reports. The document, dated 3 July, acknowledged Washington’s “isolation in opposing the Paris ...
News Digest Item | 06 Jul 2017
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The US negotiating team is “working hard to water down” climate texts for the upcoming G20 summit at the preceding negotiations, said International Executive Director at Greenpeace Jennifer Morgan at the Global Solidarity Summit in Hamburg. It is ...
News Digest Item | 06 Jul 2017
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Germany’s carmakers should follow the example of Swedish competitor Volvo and push for a quick transition towards electric cars, car industry expert Ferdinand Dudenhöffer told Frankfurter Rundschau. Dudenhöffer said he believed the Chinese car market will ...
News Digest Item | 06 Jul 2017
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G20 governments put four times more money into fossil energy generation than into renewables- despite their official commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement’s aims, NGOs including WWF, Urgewald and Friends of the Earth say in a press release. In a ...
News Digest Item | 06 Jul 2017
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Free Democratic Party (FDP) leader Christian Lindner wants to slow down wind power expansion throughout Germany, after having pushed for similar policy in the new coalition agreement for North Rhine-Westphalia, reports news agency dpa. “It doesn’t make ...
News Digest Item | 06 Jul 2017
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International efforts in the framework of the G20 to limit the effects of climate change will have to rely on wind power as a pillar of low-carbon energy generation, the German Wind Energy Association (BWE) says in a press release. “Auctions for wind and ...
News Digest Item | 06 Jul 2017
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The average diesel passenger car on Europe’s roads emits less CO₂ than a comparable petrol car, but the compliance cost of meeting the European Union’s CO2 reduction target for new cars by 2025 would be up to 280 euros per vehicle lower with fewer diesel ...
News Digest Item | 06 Jul 2017
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Wednesday, 5 July, 2017 The pressure on Germany to take global leadership on climate action has been constantly mounting since US President Donald Trump decided to take the United States out of the Paris climate agreement. Ahead of the G20 summit in ...
News | 05 Jul 2017
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The G20 should boost the innovative strength of industry and accelerate technology development, so that it can “make its maximum contribution to climate protection,” writes Kurt Bock, Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors and CEO of BASF, and ...
News Digest Item | 05 Jul 2017
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An international group of 45 private foundations and philanthropic organisations has called on the G20 to make the implementation of the UN agreements on climate protection and sustainability their core responsibility. “If necessary, this must be enforced ...
News Digest Item | 05 Jul 2017
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Germany no longer is among the countries most engaged in advancing climate protection, Werner Rätz, co-founder of global justice group Attac Germany says in an interview with Frankfurter Rundschau. This year’s G20 host is advancing its energy transition ...
News Digest Item | 05 Jul 2017
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The G20 meeting in Hamburg is meant to address some of the most pressing global problems but many of the heads of state present at this year’s summit have a very poor record of defending human rights in their own countries, Christian Grefe writes in a ...
News Digest Item | 05 Jul 2017
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The city of Hamburg, host of this week’s G20 summit, has joined the international network Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy, according to a press release. “Cities and communities are key to reaching international climate targets. Especially after ...
News Digest Item | 05 Jul 2017
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The Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) introduced a new website that aggregates power market data from different transmission grid operators almost in real time and provides them in a user-friendly way, the agency said in a press release. Data includes power ...
News Digest Item | 05 Jul 2017
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The Hamburg summit must send out the clear signal that the “overwhelming majority” will now implement the Paris Climate Agreement – with or without the US, says environmental NGO Germanwatch in a press release. “The G20 has a special responsibility for ...
News Digest Item | 05 Jul 2017
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Chinese President Xi Jinping and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have vowed to work together closely at the upcoming G20 summit in Hamburg to further shared goals and overcome diplomatic difficulties with third countries. During a visit in Berlin, Xi said ...
News Digest Item | 05 Jul 2017
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The G20 is in principle “an acceptable format” to find solutions for big global challenges, but the Hamburg summit “must deliver results” given the costs associated with hosting the event, said Sweelin Heuss, managing director at Greenpeace Germany, at a ...
News Digest Item | 05 Jul 2017
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Tuesday, 4 July, 2017 At the Hamburg summit, the G20 leaders must go beyond mere lip services and present concrete proposals on how they will implement the Paris Climate Agreement, Christoph Bals, policy director of environmental NGO Germanwatch, tells ...
News | 04 Jul 2017
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The conservative alliance of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU and its Bavarian sister party CSU has pledged to stick to the country’s national climate targets, including the long fought-over Climate Action Plan 2050. The two parties’ joint programme ...
News Digest Item | 04 Jul 2017
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G20 member states are beginning to decarbonise their economies, but the required investment in fossil fuels remains so high that the “well below 2°Celsius” global warming reduction target will be “missed by a wide margin”, according to the Brown to Green ...
News Digest Item | 04 Jul 2017
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Due to its inner unity, reliability and common interests like free trade and climate protection, China has become the most important G20 ally for Germany, besides other EU states, writes Finn Mayer-Kuckuk for Frankfurter Rundschau. Major topics of dispute ...
News Digest Item | 04 Jul 2017
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Germany’s shift from fossil and nuclear power generation to an energy system based on renewables and energy efficiency offers big opportunities for the country’s roughly 900 municipal utilities (or Stadtwerke), writes Jürgen Flauger in the business daily ...
News Digest Item | 04 Jul 2017
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The lack of a consensus at the G20 could become actually a success for the German presidency, if it succeeded in building alliances for individual topics, in essence breaking with the forum’s convention of consensus-based decision-making, Dennis Snower, ...
News Digest Item | 04 Jul 2017
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In a telephone call, US President Donald Trump told German Chancellor Angela Merkel that he wants to help her make the G20 summit in Hamburg this week a success, according to the White House, reports Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ). Before the phone call, Merkel ...
News Digest Item | 04 Jul 2017
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Germany produced 35 percent of its power from renewable energy in the first half of 2017, up from 33 percent the previous year, according to the BEE renewable energy association. But in the heating sector, the gains were only minimal, the BEE said. “The ...
News Digest Item | 03 Jul 2017
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The vice-president of the European Commission in charge of the Energy Union, Maroš Šefčovič, told weekly news magazine Der Spiegel that the EU wants to negotiate with Russia over the gas pipeline Nord Stream 2, instead of the German government, write ...
News Digest Item | 03 Jul 2017
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German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel has warned the global community against the anti-climate course of the United States and urged leaders to stick to the Paris climate agreement in an interview on the environmental magazine movum.info. “For the US ...
News Digest Item | 03 Jul 2017
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A new study by energy consultancy Brainpool, commissioned by Greenpeace, outlines a detailed plan for exiting coal in Germany, so the country can reach its emissions-cutting goals. The study details when which coal-powered plants should be shut off ...
News Digest Item | 03 Jul 2017
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Many of Germany’s medium-sized industrial companies say they are under pressure from rising electricity costs, and businesses want the government to cut levies that fund Germany’s renewables expansion, writes Klaus Stratmann in the Handelsblatt Online. ...
News Digest Item | 03 Jul 2017
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The conservative alliance of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU and its Bavarian sister party CSU has pledged to stick to the country’s national climate targets, including the long fought-over Climate Action Plan 2050. The two parties’ joint programme ...
News Digest Item | 03 Jul 2017
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G20 member states are beginning to decarbonise their economies, but the required investment in fossil fuels remains so high that the “well below 2°Celsius” global warming reduction target will be “missed by a wide margin”, according to the Brown to Green ...
News Digest Item | 03 Jul 2017
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel says the upcoming G20 meeting in Hamburg will focus not only on the economic growth, but also on sustainable growth, Reuters writes, quoting a podcast of the Federal Press Office. "We've got to have a 'win ...
News Digest Item | 03 Jul 2017
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Friday, 30 June, 2017 One week ahead of the Hamburg G20 summit, the ambitious climate and energy action plan the German presidency was pushing hangs in the balance. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she is determined to make the meeting a success ...
News | 30 Jun 2017
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Germany’s chief climate diplomat Karsten Sach has stressed the need for China and Germany to show joint “pragmatic” leadership in climate protection in light of new disorder in international climate diplomacy following the decision of US President Donald ...
News Digest Item | 30 Jun 2017
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Social Democratic (SPD) head of the federal parliamentary group Thomas Oppermann called on Chancellor Angela Merkel to forge a “19:1 alliance” against US President Donald Trump on climate policy, reports news agency dpa. In a speech in the German ...
News Digest Item | 30 Jun 2017
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel may not want to be US President Donald Trump’s opponent, but she is, writes Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger in an opinion piece in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “This could pay off in terms of domestic politics,” as other ...
News Digest Item | 30 Jun 2017
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel tries to be factual and content-focussed in her clear criticism of US President Donald Trump’s policies but she is unlikely to be successful in light of the “cacophony of interests” at the G20 summit, writes Stefan ...
News Digest Item | 30 Jun 2017
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German conventional energy utility RWE’s CEO Rolf Martin Schmitz says his company plans to buy new power stations as he expects electricity to become scarcer and prices to rise over the coming years, reports Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). RWE has a ...
News Digest Item | 30 Jun 2017
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The federal economy ministry’s proposed new strategy “Energy efficiency and heat from renewable energies” could endanger Germany’s climate goals as it hindered house owners from installing modern fossil fuel-based heating systems, say conservative ...
News Digest Item | 30 Jun 2017
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Many more buildings than reported by the federal economy ministry can be made accessible for the new tenant power law, according to a study by Institute for Ecological Economy Research (IÖW), commissioned by the Green group in the Bundestag. Read the ...
News Digest Item | 30 Jun 2017
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US President Donald Trump’s decision to take the country out of the international Paris agreement on climate has harmed global trust and will also hurt the US economy, German environment minister Barbara Hendricks told company leaders at a conference on ...
News Digest Item | 30 Jun 2017
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Saturday, 1 July, 2017 German Chancellor Angela Merkel can still hope to achieve substantial progress in climate protection as she enters difficult talks with the leaders of the world’s largest economies at this week’s G20 summit in Hamburg, John J. ...
News | 01 Jul 2017
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Thursday, 29 June, 2017 European Union leaders have underscored their commitment to work towards a joint solution on climate issues at the G20 summit in Hamburg. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said it would not be easy regarding questions such as climate ...
News | 29 Jun 2017
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The ongoing cost debate over Germany’s transition from fossil to renewable energy sources could give the impression that the “Energiewende means saying farewell to super-cheap energy”, strom-report.de reports. “But that is not the case,” the article says. ...
News Digest Item | 29 Jun 2017
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A plan for an exit from coal-fired power generation in Germany will not necessarily be the result of the structural commission agreed by the current government in the country’s climate action plan 2050. That was the claim made by Michael Vassiliadis, head ...
News Digest Item | 29 Jun 2017
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The former Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres, and a group of scientists including Hans Joachim Schellnhuber of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) set out a six-point plan for ...
News Digest Item | 29 Jun 2017
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The fraction of Germany’s budget generated by taxing economic activities harmful to the environment and the climate is declining, according to calculations by NGO Green Budget Germany (FÖS). Just 4.3 percent of the public budget- less than the EU-average ...
News Digest Item | 29 Jun 2017
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German car supplier Schaeffler’s lower profit expectation might herald a watershed for the country’s entire automotive industry, Max Hägler writes in Süddeutsche Zeitung. The supplier’s plunge in the stock market could be a “warning shot” that electric ...
News Digest Item | 29 Jun 2017
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Mobility in Germany used to be equated with auto-mobility but an increasing number of young people never own a car or even get a driving licence, Green Party MP Matthias Gastel writes in a guest article on Zeit Online. Young Germans preferred to use a ...
News Digest Item | 29 Jun 2017
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The growing reliance of Germany’s power system on renewable energy sources means the country will have to increase efforts to find viable long-term power storage solutions, Stefan Schultz writes on Spiegel Online. The German government has no sound ...
News Digest Item | 29 Jun 2017
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Germany’s parliament (Bundestag) has voted to allow tenants to directly source their electricity from solar panels on their roofs, the parliament has said in a press release. The so-called “tenant electricity” concept says that landlords receive a premium ...
News Digest Item | 29 Jun 2017
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel is determined to lead the climate negotiations at the G20 summit in Hamburg “in a way that they serve the content and goal of the Paris Agreement”, she said in a government declaration before the federal parliament. After ...
News Digest Item | 29 Jun 2017
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Germany pushes for G20 climate focus, despite Trump 11 Jul 2017 The leaders of the world's largest economies have met at the G20 summit in Germany's main port city Hamburg. The current US administration's decision to pull out of the Paris ...
Dossier | 11 Jul 2017
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Germany’s transport ministry (BMVI) and the country’s carmakers have agreed to form a joint institute to ensure more “transparent” and “realistic” exhaust emissions tests, the BMVI has said in a press release. The institute, dubbed DIVEM (German Institute ...
News Digest Item | 28 Jun 2017
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German state secretary in the economy ministry Rainer Baake welcomed the EU energy ministers’ agreement on energy savings targets, but said that Germany would have wished for binding provisions, writes Hendrik Kafsack in an article for Frankfurter ...
News Digest Item | 28 Jun 2017
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All German energy-related taxes and levies should be substituted by a national price on greenhouse gas emissions (CO₂ levy), which would increase continuously over the coming years, according to a proposal by the newly-founded association for a national ...
News Digest Item | 28 Jun 2017
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The new governing coalition in Germany’s most populous federal state North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) may not care too much about climate protection despite ambitious promises, Ralf Köpke writes in a commentary for Energie & Management. The conservative ...
News Digest Item | 28 Jun 2017
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The German government has reached a compromise on aligning contested regional differences in power grid fees paid by consumers, according to the Social Democratic Party (SPD). “According to the draft law, grid fees will be aligned in four yearly steps ...
News Digest Item | 28 Jun 2017
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East German federal states Saxony and Thuringia have turned to the country’s federal government as well as the European Union to garner support for their ailing solar power industry, Dresdner Neueste Nachrichten reports. Both states’ economy ministers ...
News Digest Item | 27 Jun 2017
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Despite continuing subsidies for wind power, the technology is likely to prove very beneficial for regional economies in Germany in the long run, Steffen Höhne writes in a commentary for Mitteldeutsche Zeitung. In the eastern German federal state of ...
News Digest Item | 27 Jun 2017
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Germany’s environment minister Barbara Hendricks has shunned calls for making a clear commitment to initialising the country’s exit from coal-fired power production. At a press conference by government members of her Social Democratic Party (SPD), ...
News Digest Item | 27 Jun 2017
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Germany's economy ministry (BMWi) has signed a contract with the country's nuclear plant operators that regulates the funding of nuclear waste disposal, the BMWi has said in a press release. The BMWi and the four utilities E.ON, EnBW, RWE and ...
News Digest Item | 27 Jun 2017
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German utility EnBW is reportedly ready to dispatch the first barge carrying nuclear waste casks along the River Neckar in the south-west of the country, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said. Anti-nuclear activists have protested against the impending ...
News Digest Item | 27 Jun 2017
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20 Jul 2017 The energy sector is both enthralled and terrified by blockchain technology, an innovative and potentially revolutionary way to process transactions such as power trades or financial flows. Some proponents claim it is the death knell for ...
Factsheet | 20 Jul 2017
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Digitalisation ignites new phase in energy transition 21 Jul 2017 Information and communication technology is about to revolutionise Germany’s energy sector once again. The birthplace of the energy transition needs a more flexible and efficient ...
Dossier | 21 Jul 2017
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Germany’s nuclear fund is meant to cover the costs accruing from the country’s nuclear phase-out for generations to come. If – and only if- the fund is managed well, taxpayers will not have to top it up, Helmut Bünder and Brigitte Koch write in ...
News Digest Item | 26 Jun 2017
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Volkswagen is pushing natural gas engines in the desperate hope of remaining below the EU’s 2020 fleet emission targets, writes Christian Frahm in Spiegel Online. “According to sources within the Wolfsburg headquarters, the company will not be able to ...
News Digest Item | 26 Jun 2017
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Chinese e-car quotas could turn into a shock for the German car industry, with an effect comparable to the impact of the Fukushima nuclear disaster on utilities, writes Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, head of the Center Automotive Research (CAR) at the University ...
News Digest Item | 26 Jun 2017
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Grid operator Tennet, one of Germany’s four major electricity network companies, has warned that a toll on power transmission from Germany’s windy north to industrial centres in the south could create substantial obstacles for the country’s planned ...
News Digest Item | 26 Jun 2017
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The German government plans to introduce new tax incentives for building insulation, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. The newspaper has learned that Chancellor Angela Merkel and Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks propose subsidies, and the ...
News Digest Item | 26 Jun 2017
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Around 50,000 people joined hands on 25 June across the borders of Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany to form a 90-kilometre human chain in protest against the incident-prone Belgian nuclear power plants at Doel and Tihange, Rheinische Post reports. The ...
News Digest Item | 26 Jun 2017
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The German news website Spiegel Online has published an interactive map showing the results of research conducted by the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, and the Austrian Institute for Ecology into fallout from possible nuclear ...
News Digest Item | 26 Jun 2017
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The German government and the country’s nuclear plant operators will sign a long-awaited contract about the funding for the final storage of nuclear waste today, Andreas Mihm writes in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The contract formally ensures that ...
News Digest Item | 26 Jun 2017
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The chief of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s chancellery, Peter Altmaier, has said that while Germany is intent on meeting its 2020 emissions-reduction goals, it was not clear it would succeed. “We don’t know if we’ll make it,” Altmaier said at the debate ...
News Digest Item | 23 Jun 2017
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The Social Democrats’ (SPD) deputy chair Ralf Stegner has said that as far as he is concerned, the German coal exit is not a question of “if” but “how.” At the debate forum“Sustainability and climate protection: What roadmap do the parties have?”, ...
News Digest Item | 23 Jun 2017
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German utility E.ON’ chief operating officer for grids and renewable energies, Leonhard Birnbaum, demands a change to the country’s onshore wind power auctions to ensure that professional wind power project developers cannot benefit from advantages given ...
News Digest Item | 23 Jun 2017
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Conflict of interests between wind power production and wildlife protection is “marginal if we look at the alternatives,” the head of the German Green Party’s parliamentary group, Anton Hofreiter, says in an opinion piece for Der Tagesspiegel Online. ...
News Digest Item | 23 Jun 2017
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With a human chain stretching over three countries, activists in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands are to protest against the incident-prone Belgian nuclear plants Tihange and Doel, Tobias Müller writes in Tageszeitung (taz). The organisers of the ...
News Digest Item | 23 Jun 2017
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Peter Mosch, head of the workers’ council of German carmaker Audi, has criticised a management decision to locate production of the company’s second electric car abroad, Philipp Vetter reports on Welt Online. “If the company management shows no ...
News Digest Item | 23 Jun 2017
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After two years of construction and trial phases, German utility EnBW’s subsidiary TransnetBW is beginning operation of its central control room, dpa reports in an article carried by Welt Online. The grid operator intends to manage the Baden-Wuerttemberg ...
News Digest Item | 23 Jun 2017
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French President Emmanuel Macron’s proposal to introduce a high price on CO₂ emissions in the European Union would give France an “enormous competitive edge” over Germany, as his country’s energy supply is based mostly on emission-free nuclear and hydro ...
News Digest Item | 23 Jun 2017
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Friday, 23 June, 2017 The leading candidates of the two smaller yet influential German political parties sparred at a utilities conference in Berlin over major energy policy issues, such as the exit from coal-fired power generation and a national versus a ...
News | 23 Jun 2017
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Thursday, 22 June, 2017 Germany's energy transition can only be successful if it is created by citizens themselves in a socially fair way, the Left Party writes in its election campaign programme. The Left is currently the largest opposition group in ...
News | 22 Jun 2017
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Underground salt caverns in the northern German region of Frisia could become the “world’s largest battery”, German energy company EWE AG told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. EWE plans to use the caverns as large redox flow batteries. Commonly, climate ...
News Digest Item | 22 Jun 2017
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The planned Russian-German natural gas pipeline project Nord Stream 2 “is a raw example of how Berlin captures the EU machinery,” writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in an article for The Telegraph. “Brussels set aside EU law on Nord Stream, yet enforced it on ...
News Digest Item | 22 Jun 2017
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Germany’s failure to resolve national alignment of power grid fees is down to politicians stalling in order to appease voters in the country’s most populous state North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Michael Bauchmüller writes in Süddeutsche Zeitung. Former ...
News Digest Item | 22 Jun 2017
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The apparent success of citizens’ energy projects in Germany’s first onshore wind power auction in May was met with relief by those who feared the new support scheme might favour large companies at the expense of smaller bidders, Daniel Wetzel writes in ...
News Digest Item | 22 Jun 2017
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The city of Berlin has set out concrete steps to achieve its goal of drastically reducing its CO2 emissions by 2050, the city council said in a press release. Its new Energy and Climate Protection Programme 2030 (BEK 2030) contains around 100 efficiency ...
News Digest Item | 22 Jun 2017
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The southern German federal state of Baden-Wuerttemberg plans to considerably step up efforts to promote e-mobility, the state’s Green-led government said in a press release. “The aim is to make Baden-Wuerttemberg Germany’s centre for the development and ...
News Digest Item | 22 Jun 2017
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To compensate for loss of revenue after Brexit, EU Budget Commissioner Günther Oettinger proposes that member states could transfer part of their tax revenues to the EU, including revenues from taxes on CO₂ emission rights, he told German weekly Der ...
News Digest Item | 22 Jun 2017
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Germany must “significantly increase” its goals for renewables expansion to supply all sectors with electricity in the future and reach its own climate targets, writes the Social Democratic parliamentary group in the Bundestag (SPD) in a new position ...
News Digest Item | 22 Jun 2017
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel wants the parliament (German Bundestag) to find an agreement on national power grid fee alignment before the summer break, said economy minister Brigitte Zypries at the German energy industry conference BDEW Congress in ...
News Digest Item | 21 Jun 2017
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Banning diesel cars from entering inner cities at times of high air pollution is the right way to protect public health, a majority of Germans says according to a representative survey commissioned by the Stern magazine. While 59 percent of respondents ...
News Digest Item | 21 Jun 2017
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The planned Russian-German natural gas pipeline project Nord Stream 2 is currently the “most controversial and difficult question of EU energy security”, said Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference (MSC), at the German energy ...
News Digest Item | 21 Jun 2017
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Germany’s most powerful industry federation BDI regards a fundamental reform of the country’s Renewable Energies Act (EEG) as necessary to ensure competitiveness, BDI president Dieter Kempf said in a press release. Kempf said energy policy should be made ...
News Digest Item | 21 Jun 2017
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Heat pumps as an alternative to fossil fuels for heating could be a viable option for northern German regions but less so in the country’s south, Harald Czycholl writes in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Northern German regions, like neighbouring Denmark, ...
News Digest Item | 21 Jun 2017
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Central German federal state Hesse is about to inaugurate its 1,000th wind turbine, putting it firmly on its way to ending the state’s reliance on nuclear power, Hesse’s economy minister Tarek al-Wazir told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “We’ll tear ...
News Digest Item | 21 Jun 2017
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called the expansion of the country’s power grid an “absolute priority” for the next legislative period. At a convention of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), Merkel said Germany was “lagging behind on all ...
News Digest Item | 21 Jun 2017
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Tuesday, 20 June, 2017 NGOs from all over the world have called on German Chancellor Angela Merkel to fight for a strong stance on climate at the G20 summit in little more than two weeks. Merkel said the US decision to leave the Paris Climate Agreement ...
News | 20 Jun 2017
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Germany’s indignation over the US Senate’s planned expansion of economic sanctions on Russia illustrates “the whole extent of irritation in the current transatlantic relationship”, Richard Herzinger writes in Die Welt. Leading German officials find ...
News Digest Item | 20 Jun 2017
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The row between Germany, Austria and the US Senate over a planned expansion of US sanctions on Russia has renewed the energy transition’s importance as a means to achieve greater energy supply security, Petra Pinzler writes in a column for Zeit Online. ...
News Digest Item | 20 Jun 2017
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The path to autonomous vehicles will be an evolution rather than a revolution, and fully “digital cars” won’t dominate Germany’s roads before 2040, according to a Deutsche Bank study. This is due to the industry’s long development cycles, the longevity of ...
News Digest Item | 20 Jun 2017
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Power customers in Germany on average paid about 2.5 percent more for electricity in June than they did in January, price comparison website Check24 says in a listing seen by Clean Energy Wire. An average household with a consumption of about 3,500 ...
News Digest Item | 20 Jun 2017
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The national alignment of expansion costs for Germany’s power transmission grid- a core energy policy demand of eastern German states- could fall prey to dispute between the ruling social democratic (SPD) and conservative (CDU/CSU) parliamentary groups, ...
News Digest Item | 20 Jun 2017
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Germany’s “technology-neutral” joint auctions for wind and solar power projects are the result of “a political bargaining process” instead of sound economic strategy, Angelika Nikionok-Ehrlich writes for Energie & Management. “Even the Federal ...
News Digest Item | 20 Jun 2017
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More than 300 civil society organisations call on “the remaining 19 members of the G20 to reaffirm their unfaltering commitment” to the implementation of The Paris Agreement after the US decision to leave the accord. The G20 engagement group Civil20 (C20) ...
News Digest Item | 20 Jun 2017
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The Green Party has failed to learn from past experience that insisting on controversial demands can cost the party dearly in terms of voter approval, Ludwig Greven writes in a commentary for Zeit Online. While the world is “grappling with Donald Trump,” ...
News Digest Item | 19 Jun 2017
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Pope Francis has urged German Chancellor Angela Merkel to stand firm over international climate protection and protect the Paris Climate Agreement against dissenters, news agency Reuters reports. "The Pope encouraged me to continue to fight for ...
News Digest Item | 19 Jun 2017
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The surplus on Germany’s green energy account continues to exceed five billion euros, compared to 4.3 billion euros in May 2016, reports Andreas Mihm in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. But the surplus will shrink over the summer to pay for seasonally ...
News Digest Item | 19 Jun 2017
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China has moved into pole position in management consultancy Roland Berger’s international e-mobility ranking for the first time. Whereas Chinese e-car sales doubled last year, the German market remains sluggish, potentially causing German carmakers to ...
News Digest Item | 19 Jun 2017
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Successful citizens’ energy projects in Germany’s first onshore wind power auction still have to prove that they can live up to their name, Bernward Janzing writes in the Tageszeitung (taz). While 93 percent of successful bidders in the auction were ...
News Digest Item | 19 Jun 2017
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The world’s largest supplier of diesel technology Bosch will build a new chip factory for around one billion euros to produce future mobility technology in Germany, writes Susanne Preuß in a commentary in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “The new ...
News Digest Item | 19 Jun 2017
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Social Democrats (SPD) in Saxony have made clear they consider lignite mining to play an important role as a “bridging technology” in Germany’s energy supply for the foreseeable future, Welt Online reports. “We rely on a gradual approach that equally ...
News Digest Item | 19 Jun 2017
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The German Green Party has strengthened its focus on ecology and economic transformation as core topics for its election campaign. Following the Green’s convention last weekend, the party published a set of amendments to its draft election campaign ...
News Digest Item | 19 Jun 2017
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A new draft US Senate bill that is meant to tighten economic sanctions on Russia could threaten Europe’s energy supply security, German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern have said in a joint press release. “The threat ...
News Digest Item | 16 Jun 2017
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The European Commission wants to directly negotiate with Russia a skeleton agreement on the Nord Stream 2 Baltic Sea gas pipeline, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reports. Otherwise, the project would “end up in court”, Commission Vice President Maros ...
News Digest Item | 16 Jun 2017
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The European Commission has approved under EU state aid rules the transfer of radioactive waste liabilities to a new public fund in return for the payment of about 24.1 billion euros by nuclear power plant operators in Germany, the Commission said in a ...
News Digest Item | 16 Jun 2017
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Solar power costs are falling so rapidly that the technology will replace fossil fuels like coal much faster than previously forecast, Jess Shankleman and Hayley Warren say in an article for Bloomberg. According to an outlook by Bloomberg New Energy ...
News Digest Item | 16 Jun 2017
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A boat lift near Hamburg could be extended to become a pumped storage facility, Hamburger Abendblatt reports. In times of excess wind power production, water could be pumped to the upper part of the Elbe Lateral Canal, and drained through electricity ...
News Digest Item | 16 Jun 2017
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Members of the German business association Economic Council, associated with Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU), want an end to the grand government coalition with the Social Democrats (SPD), and call for a “realignment” of the country’s ...
News Digest Item | 16 Jun 2017
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Considerable discrepancies between the German Green Party’s draft election programme and the ’ Ten-point plan for Green governance ‘ it published in May will make this weekend’s federal party conference difficult, writes Henrike Roßbach in an opinion ...
News Digest Item | 16 Jun 2017
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Protesting for global climate protection efforts and against the US decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, Greenpeace Germany has projected a heart-shaped map of the world and the words “Planet Earth first” onto the Elbphilharmonie building, the ...
News Digest Item | 16 Jun 2017
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The future government coalition of Christian Democrats (CDU) and Free Democrats (FDP) in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) wants to slow down wind power expansion and keep energy generation from fossil fuels as “bridging technologies for the foreseeable future ...
News Digest Item | 16 Jun 2017
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The German Renewable Energy Research Association (FVEE) forms a nationwide cooperation structure of institutes researching and developing technologies for renewables, energy efficiency, energy storage and optimized technical and socio-economic interaction ...
Expert
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German postal service Deutsche Post DHL and carmaker Ford are entering a partnership to manufacture electric delivery vans, Deutsche Post said in a press release. The new van – with the chassis of the Ford Transit providing the technical basis – will be ...
News Digest Item | 15 Jun 2017
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Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau disputed a report by German weekly Der Spiegel which claimed he proposed to strike the references to the Paris Agreement from the upcoming G20 communiqué in a telephone call with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “No, ...
News Digest Item | 15 Jun 2017
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Germany and Denmark have agreed to increase the minimum cross-border electricity trade, according to a press release by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi). “The agreement acknowledges that Germany is undergoing a fundamental ...
News Digest Item | 15 Jun 2017
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Hamburg-based wind turbine manufacturer Senvion and German utility EnBW concluded a cooperation agreement for onshore projects totalling several hundred megawatts (MW) throughout Germany, Senvion announced in a press release. Find the press release in ...
News Digest Item | 15 Jun 2017
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The CDU’s forging of new state government coalitions in Schleswig-Holstein (CDU, Green Party, FDP) and North Rhine-Westphalia (CDU, FDP) opens up options for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservatives in the September federal elections, writes Daniel ...
News Digest Item | 15 Jun 2017
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Germany’s capital Berlin is the country’s only city to make it into the top ten of a ranking by the IESE Business School of global smart cities, the IESE has said in a press release. Berlin ranked 9 th in IESE’s Cities in Motion Index (CIMI) and scored ...
News Digest Item | 15 Jun 2017
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The German cabinet has paved the way for projects located in other EU countries to take part in national renewable energy auctions, the Federal Ministry for the Economy and Energy (BMWi) has said in a press release. Five percent of annual bidding capacity ...
News Digest Item | 15 Jun 2017
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The Energiewende's booming flagship braces for stormy times 14 Jun 2017 Onshore wind power capacity in Germany has increased more than 1,000 times since 1990. A combination of idealistic impetus and entrepreneurial enthusiasm among citizens has ...
Dossier | 14 Jun 2017
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The Christian Democrats (CDU) and Free Democrats (FDP) in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia will form a government coalition, state chairmen Armin Laschet (CDU) and Christian Lindner (FDP) told news agency dpa. “We have a coalition agreement” and the ...
News Digest Item | 14 Jun 2017
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“We will correct the ideological, much too fast expansion of wind energy” in North Rhine-Westphalia, said the Free Democrats’ (FDP) state chairman Christian Lindner in a video on Twitter, talking about coalition negotiations. His comments came just hours ...
News Digest Item | 14 Jun 2017
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Germany will miss its climate targets unless the next federal government steps up its efforts, according to non-profit environmental and consumer protection association Environmental Action Germany (DUH). In a list of 85 measures for the energy, heating ...
News Digest Item | 14 Jun 2017
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Germany and the rest of Europe should redouble their efforts to fight climate change after the United States’ decision to leave the Paris Climate Agreement, Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the annual meeting of the Christian Democratic Union group in ...
News Digest Item | 14 Jun 2017
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Eastern German states Saxony and Brandenburg demand at least 1.2 billion euros in federal funds to finance the economic transformation of their shared coal-mining region Lusatia, Jens Blankennagel writes in Berliner Zeitung. “ The end of coal mining there ...
News Digest Item | 14 Jun 2017
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Germany will be able to fulfil its Paris Climate Agreement obligations as well as the EU’s 2030 climate targets with a continued use of coal-fired power production, trade union IG BCE’s head Michael Vassiliadis said in an interview with Dresdner Neueste ...
News Digest Item | 14 Jun 2017
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The mayor of BMW hometown Munich is considering a ban on diesel cars to curb emission levels in the south German metropolis, Nina Bovensiepen writes in Süddeutsche Zeitung. “As much as I’d be happy to do without this kind of bans, I don’t see how we will ...
News Digest Item | 14 Jun 2017
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The United States' “short-sighted and irresponsible” withdrawal from the Paris Agreement has prompted the G20 engagement groups to call on the remaining G19 member states to “convincingly show their willingness to implement the deal” at the upcoming ...
News Digest Item | 14 Jun 2017
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The leadership of the Christian Democrats (CDU), the Green Party and the Free Democrats (FDP) in Schleswig-Holstein have agreed on forming a government, said CDU frontrunner Daniel Günther in a press conference. The agreement “shows how ecology can be ...
News Digest Item | 14 Jun 2017
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German environment minister Barbara Hendricks welcomed the commitment to climate protection that all G7 members except the United States made in the final communiqué of the environment minister meeting in Italy, according to a press release. “The Paris ...
News Digest Item | 13 Jun 2017
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With federal elections coming up in Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel “needs some sort of win on climate change at the G20”, Andrew Light, a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute (WRI) told the Washington Post. Things will “get interesting” at ...
News Digest Item | 13 Jun 2017
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The German development ministry (BMZ) has concluded so-called reform partnerships with three African countries that include expanding the use of renewable energy sources and improving energy efficiency, the BMZ said in a press release. Tunisia, Ivory ...
News Digest Item | 13 Jun 2017
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Renewable energies around the globe are growing at a rate “never thought possible by many some years ago” but Germany “is botching up” the technology and is haunted by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s continued failure in energy policy, former Green MP Hans ...
News Digest Item | 13 Jun 2017
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In the race for developing the best storage technology for electric vehicles, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s strategy is “not trying to overtake the mighty Asian competitors” in conventional lithium ion-battery technology “but forging ahead with a ...
News Digest Item | 13 Jun 2017
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The German environment ministry (BMUB) published a fact-check of US President Donald Trump’s announcement speech to pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement. To Trump’s statement that the accord was a “deal that punishes the United States”, BMUB replies: ...
News Digest Item | 13 Jun 2017
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With a record amount of 5.57 terawatt hours (TWh), Germany’s solar power plants in May almost generated as much electricity as all of the country’s nuclear power plants combined (5.65 TWh), the German Solar Industry Association (BSW Solar) said in a press ...
News Digest Item | 13 Jun 2017
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12 Jun 2017 Wind turbines have become one of the most visible components of the Energiewende and increasingly shape the landscape in many parts of the country. But Germany’s most important green energy source does not only have supporters – numerous ...
Factsheet | 12 Jun 2017
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The US will join the G7 in the communiqué of environment ministers meeting in Bologna, but it will acknowledge points of disagreement, a German official told reporters attending the meeting, according to a Bloomberg article by Chiara Albanese and Brian ...
News Digest Item | 12 Jun 2017
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Germany and the US state of California are teaming up to tackle climate change, after US President Donald Trump announced that the US would leave the Paris Climate Agreement. California’s Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. and Germany’s environment minister ...
News Digest Item | 12 Jun 2017
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The German Federal Constitutional Court's decision to declare the country’s nuclear fuel tax law invalid has outraged many Green politicians, but could turn out to be beneficial for some of their fellow party members, Daniel Wetzel writes in the ...
News Digest Item | 12 Jun 2017
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Germany’s across-the-board taxes, levies and surcharges on power consumption limit flexibility and innovation in the energy sector, Fabian Reetz writes on Zeit Online. More than 80 percent of the German power price is made up of such fees imposed by the ...
News Digest Item | 12 Jun 2017
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The former border between West and East Germany could become a problem for the country’s much-needed power transmission highways SuedLink and SuedOstLink, Andreas Mihm writes in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. The government of the eastern German ...
News Digest Item | 12 Jun 2017
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The recent boost in value of utility RWE’s shares comes as a blessing for many cities and municipalities in RWE’s home state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Jürgen Flauger writes in the Handelsblatt. The increase in value of almost 70 percent since the ...
News Digest Item | 12 Jun 2017
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The Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW) proposes replacing Germany’s renewables levy (EEG-surcharge), paid by power consumers with their electricity bill, with a surcharge on income and corporate taxes. IW today published a paper that ...
News Digest Item | 12 Jun 2017
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German car industry hotspot Stuttgart plows a path forward to an electrified future powered by renewable wind and solar energy, writes Kyle Field in an article for Clean Technica. He explores Stuttgart’s “clash between the old world and industries that ...
News Digest Item | 12 Jun 2017
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Contrary to “expectations by many,” there is still no deterioration of the financing situation for municipal utilities, according to a study by consultancy PwC. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) on average increased ...
News Digest Item | 12 Jun 2017
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Japan and Great Britain did not sign a joint statement with France, Germany and Italy in reaction to the US decision to leave the Paris Agreement, and Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau proposed to strike the references to the Paris Agreement from the ...
News Digest Item | 12 Jun 2017
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Grid operator Amprion’s statement that Germany’s power grid was at its limits last winter shows that the energy transition is not on track, because supply security was endangered, writes Andreas Mihm in an opinion piece for the Frankfurter Allgemeine ...
News Digest Item | 09 Jun 2017
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The refunds that nuclear utilities E.ON, RWE and EnBW can expect after Germany’s constitutional court ruled the nuclear fuel tax law unconstitutional should be used to lower electricity prices, according to the Consumer Organisation Baden-Wuerttemberg, ...
News Digest Item | 09 Jun 2017
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It will be difficult for other parties to beat German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the upcoming federal elections, because she regularly takes proposals and demands of others and makes them her own, historian Martin H. Geyer told the Süddeutsche Zeitung in ...
News Digest Item | 09 Jun 2017
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The European Union, together with China, Canada “and other important partners” must take on a leadership role in international climate policy, after the US announced that it would pull out of the Paris Agreement, environment minister Barbara Hendricks ...
News Digest Item | 09 Jun 2017
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German representatives used the first meeting by the German-Belgian nuclear commission “to convey the worries of the German population [about Belgian nuclear power stations Tihange 2 and Doel 3] and remind them of the request by environment minister ...
News Digest Item | 09 Jun 2017
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The mining and lignite coal company Leag has said it wants to get into the battery storage business in 2018, a new business area for the company, according to an article on the website Die Welt/N24. The goal is to improve the network that manages supply ...
News Digest Item | 09 Jun 2017
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In a commentary in the online magazine, Erneuerbare Energien, Nicole Weinhold writes that despite the best quarter ever for German wind power producers, expansion in the coming years is likely to be curbed. Projects that were successful in Germany's ...
News Digest Item | 09 Jun 2017
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German utility EnBW’s planned windpark in the North Sea reckons with rising electricity prices and cheaper technology for wind parks, but it is not clear whether these assumptions will hold true, according to an article by Angela Hennersdorf in German ...
News Digest Item | 09 Jun 2017
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The German power grid urgently needs to be expanded, as it was at times stretched to its limits during the past winter, said transmission grid operator Amprion in a press release. The reasons were unscheduled plant overhauls in France and historic lows in ...
News Digest Item | 09 Jun 2017
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Deutschlandfunk’s Theo Geers blames the government, and Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble in particular, for the Constitutional Court ruling over the nuclear fuel tax. “Clumsy errors mean champagne corks were flying in the executive boardrooms of E.ON, ...
News Digest Item | 08 Jun 2017
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Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt told the Passauer Neue Presse that Germany will have the word’s most modern transport system by 2025, with electric vehicles and automated buses playing a key role, FAZ reports. “In order to further improve air ...
News Digest Item | 08 Jun 2017
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German energy group Uniper, formed last year from the fossil fuel assets of E.ON, achieved all its financial targets in 2016, CEO Klaus Schäfer said at the company’s first annual shareholders meeting in Essen on Thursday. Uniper posted an adjusted pre-tax ...
News Digest Item | 08 Jun 2017
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In a joint press release, regional branches of the German Wind Energy Association (BWE), the Industrial Union of Metalworkers (IG Metall) and the German Trade Union Association (DGB) have called on the future Schleswig-Holstein government “to continue to ...
News Digest Item | 08 Jun 2017
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"Designing the world's future" was the topic of this year’s Youth20 Dialogue Forum in Hamburg, where young people from more than 20 countries met to discuss global issues including climate change. The forum presented recommendations to ...
News Digest Item | 08 Jun 2017
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German energy companies E.ON, RWE and EnBW are expecting billions of euros in tax refunds after the German Federal Constitutional Court ruled on Wednesday that a nuclear fuel tax law was unconstitutional. Read the E.ON press release in English here. Read ...
News Digest Item | 08 Jun 2017
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The German Geothermal Association (BVG) pools companies as well as individual members working in research and application of geothermal energy. Founded in 1991, the Berlin-based association represents a variety of members from industry, science, planning ...
Expert
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The turnover of German companies in the business of supplying energy efficiency solutions grew about 6 percent to 143 billion euros in 2016, compared to 2015, according to a study by German Industry Initiative for Energy Efficiency (DENEFF) and ...
News Digest Item | 07 Jun 2017
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Old coal-fired power plants can be made more flexible at reasonable expense, allowing countries with a high share of coal-based electricity to make a smooth transition to a climate-friendly energy system, according to a new study by think tank Agora ...
News Digest Item | 07 Jun 2017
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It is impossible to predict the climate policy results of the G20 summit in July after the US decision to leave the Paris Agreement, said German government spokesperson Steffen Seibert in an interview with public radio broadcaster NDR 90,3. But it is ...
News Digest Item | 07 Jun 2017
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The Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) today started Germany’s second onshore wind power auction, the agency announced in a press release. With 1,000 megawatt (MW), the tender volume is 200 MW higher than the first tender. Deadline for bids is 1 August 2017 ...
News Digest Item | 07 Jun 2017
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that federal and state governments were “trying to find a solution” in the dispute about nationwide grid fee alignment. “At the moment, a difficult battle is raging on how we best succeed in managing this surcharge ...
News Digest Item | 07 Jun 2017
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German utility E.ON has entered into a partnership with greenXmoney to set up an online platform that allows making investments in German solar and wind power facilities “easily, securely and independently of any particular bank”, the company announced in ...
News Digest Item | 07 Jun 2017
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German nuclear utilities E.ON, RWE and EnBW can hope for the repayment of about 6 billion euros after the Federal Constitutional Court declared the nuclear fuel tax law invalid and incompatible with basic law, reports Reuters. The federal government did ...
News Digest Item | 07 Jun 2017
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Eastern German regions will receive 1.23 billion euros over the next five years for the recultivation of former lignite mines, according to the federal finance (BMF) and environment (BMUB) ministries. The federal finance and environment ministers signed ...
News Digest Item | 06 Jun 2017
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Germany’s government takes on a leadership role in international climate protection – a role fostered by the fact that the German population has overwhelmingly supported the transition to a greener economy, writes Ruby Russell in an article for ...
News Digest Item | 06 Jun 2017
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The leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU) dissociated itself from a paper by a conservative group within the party – “Berlin Circle” – that had criticised “increasingly aggressive policy goal setting, especially the CO₂ ...
News Digest Item | 06 Jun 2017
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The Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW) proposes replacing Germany’s renewables levy (EEG-surcharge), paid by power consumers with their electricity bill, with a surcharge on the income and corporate tax, reports Handelsblatt. In a paper, seen by ...
News Digest Item | 06 Jun 2017
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The federal economy ministry (BMWi) has published the results of the discussion process concerning last year’s green book on energy efficiency and the impulse paper on long term trends “Electricity 2030”. BMWi plans a white book on energy efficiency as a ...
News Digest Item | 06 Jun 2017
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US President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Agreement does not mean that the country’s climate policy was already “fully outlined”, a German government official told reporters at a press briefing in Berlin, when asked about the upcoming G20 ...
News Digest Item | 06 Jun 2017
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Germany must immediately and drastically reduce emissions in the transport sector to meet the goals of both the Paris Climate Agreement and Germany’s Climate Action Plan 2050, according to an analysis by the Federal Environment Agency (UBA). The UBA makes ...
News Digest Item | 06 Jun 2017
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“Syria, Nicaragua, and now the United States” – these are the countries that do not take part in the Paris Agreement, Bernhard Pötter writes in a commentary for the left-wing newspaper Tageszeitung (taz). These cases might be different but they share a ...
News Digest Item | 02 Jun 2017
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Back in December 2015, the Paris Climate Agreement was hailed as a “historic” achievement- 17 months later it rather looks like international diplomacy has incurred an on-the-job accident of historic proportions, Andreas Mihm writes in Frankfurter ...
News Digest Item | 02 Jun 2017
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A rule of thumb in international environmental policy so far has been that it will move forward as long as the US and China agree – “but this rule seems to have become obsolete”, Jan Heidtmann writes in Süddeutsche Zeitung. At the latest G7 summit, as ...
News Digest Item | 02 Jun 2017
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The decision by US President Donald Trump to pull his country out of the global Paris Climate Agreement has been met with dismay and defiance by the German government, Silke Kersting writes on Handelsblatt Online. Meanwhile, environmental organisations ...
News Digest Item | 02 Jun 2017
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German carmaker Daimler has agreed to make a “significant” investment in the production of electric vehicles in China, news agency Reuters reports. Together with its long-term partner company BAIC, the German luxury car brand has made “ an important first ...
News Digest Item | 02 Jun 2017
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After three years of rapid shrinking and the loss of more than 100,000 jobs, Germany’s solar industry seems to have bottomed out, Franz Hubik writes on Handelsblatt Online. “Although the market has shrunk to a fifth of its original size, it now was at ...
News Digest Item | 02 Jun 2017
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After the US decision to leave the Paris Agreement, the German government will work on uniting all remaining G20 members in climate protection efforts in the run-up to the summit in July, said government spokesperson Steffen Seibert at a press conference ...
News Digest Item | 02 Jun 2017
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Friday, 2 June, 2017 President Donald Trump has announced that he will pull the United States out of the landmark Paris Climate Agreement. The USA will be the first country to leave the seminal 2015 treaty signed by nearly 200 individual nations that ...
News | 02 Jun 2017
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6 Jun 2017 Onshore wind power is a central pillar of Germany’s transition to low-carbon energy generation. This factsheet gives insight into the industry’s most important actors, on public support of the technology as well as on the future of German wind ...
Factsheet | 06 Jun 2017
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As long as Donald Trump is president of the US, it is “basically irrelevant” whether or not his country remains a party to the Paris Climate Agreement, development economist Stephan Klasen says on Zeit Online. Even if the US remained within the treaty, ...
News Digest Item | 01 Jun 2017
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The likely new coalition government in Germany’s most populous federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) seems to aim for watering down energy efficiency standards for new buildings, Environmental Action Germany (DUH) said in a press release. During ...
News Digest Item | 01 Jun 2017
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Germany and China vowed to continue their fight against climate change hours before U.S. President Donald Trump announces whether he will quit the Paris Agreement, according to a Reuters report. "We are living in times of global uncertainty and see ...
News Digest Item | 01 Jun 2017
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A basic principle of international law says that “agreements must be kept,” Stefan Kornelius writes in a commentary for Süddeutsche Zeitung. By publicly pondering whether to pull his country out of the Paris Climate Agreement, US President Donald Trump ...
News Digest Item | 01 Jun 2017
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Thursday, 1 June, 2017 According to several US media reports, the Trump administration has decided to withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement. The US President said on Twitter he would announce his decision on Thursday. The USA would be the first ...
News | 01 Jun 2017
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel want to intensify bilateral cooperation on climate and environmental protection, the German government said in a press release. The Indo-German alliance for climate protection and ...
News Digest Item | 31 May 2017
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Despite the outcome of last week’s G7 summit in Taormina, Italy, a consensual statement by all leaders “should be the aspiration” for the G20 summit in Germany in July, said Lars-Hendrik Röller, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s economic advisor and the ...
News Digest Item | 31 May 2017
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German energy company E.ON has hired Goldman Sachs to explore options for the sale of the group's remaining stake in its legacy fossil fuel business Uniper, Reuters quotes company sources. E.ON is currently Uniper’s largest shareholder, with a 46.65 ...
News Digest Item | 31 May 2017
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In a guest commentary published by the business daily Handelsblatt, Franz Untersteller, environment minister of the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg, and Green member of the federal parliament Oliver Krischer call for a CO₂ price to be set for energy sources ...
News Digest Item | 31 May 2017
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The Green Party in the Bavarian state parliament says that Germany’s largest nuclear power plant Gundremmingen, operated in part by RWE, has exceeded power output limits several times over the past year and a half by up to 20 percent, writes Süddeutsche ...
News Digest Item | 31 May 2017
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Germany’s lignite power stations, which are particularly harmful to the climate, currently do not earn enough money to recuperate investment costs, or to invest in the maintenance and extension of connected mines, says a study conducted by the Institute ...
News Digest Item | 31 May 2017
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The German Green Party has made a strengthened commitment to climate protection and energy transition a prerequisite for joining a future coalition after September’s parliamentary elections. “We are ready for talks with any party”, but there had to be a ...
News Digest Item | 31 May 2017
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German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s criticism of the current US administration’s stance on the Paris Climate Agreement, as well as her call for greater European assertiveness, have met with broad support from German politicians and business representatives, ...
News Digest Item | 30 May 2017
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Chancellor Angela Merkel’s role as host of the upcoming G20 summit in Hamburg will not be easy should the US administration decide to pull out of the Paris Agreement, because other countries – “the eternal laggards” – would “relapse into old blockade ...
News Digest Item | 30 May 2017
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Onshore wind energy will become much cheaper in Germany over the coming years, with power costs dropping to 3 to 4.5 eurocents per kilowatt hour at top sites, according to a new study conducted by the think tank Agora Energiewende.* Find a press release ...
News Digest Item | 30 May 2017
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The German car industry has high hopes for synthetic fuels, but their plans could backfire in light of global efforts to electrify transport, writes Jens Tartler in Tagesspiegel. Synthetic fuels, produced with the help of renewable electricity, could be ...
News Digest Item | 30 May 2017
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Electric bicycles were present in 1.9 million households across Germany in early 2016, equalling over five percent of all households, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said in a press release. The total number of e-bikes in the country rose from ...
News Digest Item | 30 May 2017
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The need for, and costs of, power grid stabilising measures decreased significantly in 2016, mainly due to lower production of wind and solar power and improved grid management, says the Federal Network Agency (BNetzA) in its report on grid and system ...
News Digest Item | 30 May 2017
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8 Jun 2017 Commercial wind power production requires thorough planning and preparation. Project developers have to include geographical, technological, legal and social aspects in their calculation to conclude whether a wind farm at a given location can ...
Factsheet | 08 Jun 2017
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German chancellor Angela Merkel has described the climate talks at the G7 meeting in Italy as “very unsatisfying”. The US’s reluctance to say whether it will remain in or leave the international Paris Agreement on climate protection had created a “six ...
News Digest Item | 29 May 2017
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The resolute stance of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in advocating climate protection on the international stage could be seen as being at odds with her energy and climate policy at home, Silke Kersting writes in Handelsblatt Global. “Not much is left ...
News Digest Item | 29 May 2017
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Environmental and development NGO Germanwatch is “relieved” that all leaders except US President Donald Trump clearly committed to the Paris Climate Agreement and there was no “weakening or re-interpretation” of the accord, the organisation writes in a ...
News Digest Item | 29 May 2017
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The search of Daimler offices last week by prosecutors reveals that the diesel engine has become the biggest and most dangerous problem for German carmakers, writes Grischa Brower-Rabinowitsch in a commentary for business daily Handelsblatt. The companies ...
News Digest Item | 29 May 2017
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The German solar industry is confident that the country’s renewables expansion targets and the growing impact of energy storage solutions will boost the sector’s progress, Welt Online reports. Carsten Körnig, head of the German Solar Industry Association ...
News Digest Item | 29 May 2017
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Technological progress, systematic services, and efficiency have made the German wind power industry “ a powerhouse of the energy industry ”, according to Uwe Beckmeyer, state secretary in the Ministry for Economic Affairs (BMWi). In a press release ...
News Digest Item | 29 May 2017
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Swedish utility Vattenfall will not sell its financially struggling Moorburg coal plant in Hamburg despite revamping its business model towards more renewable energy sources and digitalisation of the energy system, Björn Hartmann writes in Hambuger ...
News Digest Item | 29 May 2017
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The German government expects difficult negotiations in climate and trade policy with US President Donald Trump at the G7 summit in Taormina, Italy, reports Henrike Roßbach in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “In terms of trade and climate, the communiqué ...
News Digest Item | 26 May 2017
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The leaders of the G7 must fully commit to climate protection and the implementation of the Paris Agreement, and industry “needs more than a minimum consensus”, said Dieter Kempf, president of Federation of German Industries (BDI), in a press release. “No ...
News Digest Item | 26 May 2017
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Germany’s foreign minister Sigmar Gabriel expects China to relax its new rules on electric cars, reports Deutsche Welle. The talks on softening the ambitious e-car quota were "on the right track," Gabriel said during a visit in Beijing. The ...
News Digest Item | 26 May 2017
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For the upcoming coalition talks in Germany's northernmost state Schleswig-Holstein, policy positions by the Green Party and the Free Democrats (FDP) differ most when it comes to the power sector, said regional FPD leader Wolfgang Kubicki in a joint ...
News Digest Item | 26 May 2017
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The pivotal mistake by the auto industry was not diesel technology itself, but holding on to it for too long, writes Grischa Brower-Rabinowitsch in an opinion piece in Handelsblatt. German carmakers had not focused on new propulsion technologies early ...
News Digest Item | 26 May 2017
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Due to the introduction of auctions for renewables support, Germany’s renewables levy (EEG-surcharge) will not increase from 2020, and will then decrease from 2022, according to a forecast by think tank Agora Energiewende,* reports Christian Schlesiger in ...
News Digest Item | 26 May 2017
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Wednesday, 24 May, 2017 Days before the G7 summit in Italy, foreign governments praised German Chancellor Merkel for her international leadership on climate and urged her to sway US President Donald Trump to keep the United States in the Paris Agreement. ...
News | 24 May 2017
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Tuesday, 30. May 2017 Germany’s energy transition is a vast national project that is reshaping the entire country- but it is not happening at an equal pace everywhere in the country. CLEW takes a look at the county Marburg-Biedenkopf in the central German ...
News | 30 May 2017
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The German car industry and transport sector receive hundreds of billions of euros in state support through different systems, writes Manfred Schäfers in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Diesel is taxed at a lower rate than petrol, meaning the government ...
News Digest Item | 24 May 2017
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Renewable energy employed about 334,000 people in Germany in 2016, making the country the European leader, according to the report “Renewable Energy and Jobs – Annual Review 2017” by International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). China, Brazil, the United ...
News Digest Item | 24 May 2017
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This week's G7 summit in Italy comes “at the right moment" to talk about the Paris Climate Agreement with the US administration, but it will be a “continuous dialogue” in a long process until the G20 summit in Germany in July, said a German ...
News Digest Item | 24 May 2017
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The Social Democratic Party (SPD) has toned down its ambition regarding the introduction of a carbon floor price in its proposal for a party programme, to be decided at a federal party conference on 25 June. The party, which currently governs together ...
News Digest Item | 24 May 2017
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Tuesday, 23. May 2017 Days before the G7 summit in Italy, foreign governments praised German Chancellor Merkel for her international leadership on climate and urged her to sway US President Donald Trump to keep the United States in the Paris Agreement. ...
News | 23 May 2017
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Thursday, 1 June, 2017 A large share of the emissions from towns and cities comes from traffic. If Germany is to reach its Energiewende goals, each will have to do their bit to reduce the number of vehicles on their roads, and steer citizens towards ...
News | 01 Jun 2017
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Monday, 29 May, 2017 Germany’s energy transition is a vast national project that is reshaping the entire country. But it is happening on a local level, too. Here, the Clean Energy Wire looks at the path that one eastern German city is taking towards ...
News | 29 May 2017
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Tuesday, 23 May, 2017 German Chancellor Angela Merkel promised to try and convince “doubters” of the urgent need to mitigate climate change. But environmental organisations said her credibility as “Climate Chancellor” was severely damaged because Germany ...
News | 23 May 2017
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The German Wind Energy Association (BWE) has called the dominance of citizens' energy cooperatives in the first round of onshore wind power tenders a "surprise" and a "pleasant signal". Citizens' cooperatives increased wind ...
News Digest Item | 23 May 2017
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E.ON CEO Johannes Teyssen has compared Germany's energy policy with excessive state control in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR). In an interview with tabloid Bild Zeitung, Teyssen said regarding Germany's energy transition: "The ...
News Digest Item | 23 May 2017
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Chancellor Angela Merkel calls climate change "a question of survival", but blocks a coal exit in Germany, according to Greenpeace. "Climate protection without coal exit is like trying to extinguish a fire with petrol," said ...
News Digest Item | 23 May 2017
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Daimler started building a new 500 million euro battery factory in the East German town of Kamenz. The site is the carmaker's second factory for lithium batteries and should be operational by the middle of 2018, quadrupling production, according to a ...
News Digest Item | 23 May 2017
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A global emissions trading system would be the ideal instrument to fight climate change, according to German Chancellor Angela Merkel. “It would be best if damaging emissions had a price world-wide. A global carbon market would be an incentive for the ...
News Digest Item | 23 May 2017
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The vice-chairman of the CDU's parliamentary group, Michael Fuchs, says wind power expansion in northern Germany "urgently" needed to be stopped due to mounting costs linked with Germany's lagging grid expansion, Andreas Mihm writes ...
News Digest Item | 23 May 2017
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Monday, 22 May, 2017 Germany and China increased pressure on the US government to stay in the Paris Climate Agreement ahead of the G7 and G20 summits. The continuing uncertainty about the US position puts Germany’s aim to agree on a G20 energy and climate ...
News | 22 May 2017
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Germany’s primary energy consumption fell 1.4 percent in the first quarter of the year, according to statistics from energy market research group AG Energiebilanzen (AGEB). While economic growth and low January temperatures pushed energy consumption ...
News Digest Item | 22 May 2017
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German utility RWE and French counterpart Engie are studying a possible share swap that could create a Franco-German giant in power grids, renewables and energy services with a market value of about 50 billion euros, report Arno Schuetze, Geert De Clercq ...
News Digest Item | 22 May 2017
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Carmaker Daimler plans to develop a new generation of diesel engines regardless of pending driving bans in many German cities, according to a report by news agency dpa carried by manager magazine. “From today’s point of view, there is no reason to say ...
News Digest Item | 22 May 2017
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Denmark is the only European country where customers pay more for power than in Germany, Michael Höfling writes in weekly newspaper Welt am Sonntag. Danes pay about 31 euros for 100 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity – one euro more than the Germans and ...
News Digest Item | 22 May 2017
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Germany and China reiterated their calls on the US administration to commit to international climate protection efforts and stay in the Paris Agreement at a climate conference in Berlin. Germany is currently trying “on all levels” to persuade the US ...
News Digest Item | 22 May 2017
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Friday, 19 May, 2017 The dominance of citizens’ energy projects among the successful bids in Germany’s first onshore wind power auctions comes as a big surprise for industry observers. Not only did citizen cooperatives account for the bulk of accepted ...
News | 19 May 2017
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Russian oil company Rosneft is set to increase its business activities in Germany, Daniel Wetzel writes in Welt Online. Russia’s largest oil producer is doubling its investments in the country to 600 million euros over the next five years, CEO Igor Sechin ...
News Digest Item | 19 May 2017
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The Social Democratic Union (SPD) wants a nationwide alignment of grid fees, SPD’s energy politician and member of the Bundestag Hubertus Heil told news agency Dow Jones. The grand coalition’s (CDU/CSU, SPD) federal cabinet had introduced a draft for a ...
News Digest Item | 19 May 2017
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A large majority of Germans (82 percent) believe that the Energiewende is an important project which they personally consider the right thing, but many think that costs are too high, according to a survey by research company GfK, commissioned by natural ...
News Digest Item | 19 May 2017
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Germany climbed one rank and is in fourth place on business consultancy Ernst & Young’s (EY) Renewable energy country attractiveness index (recai), trailing China, India and the United States. EY ranks 40 countries on their attractiveness for ...
News Digest Item | 19 May 2017
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Mercedes-Benz Energy teams up with US solar energy company Vivint Solar to bring Mercedes-Benz’s home energy storage system to California, the companies announced in a press release. Mercedes has been selling the batteries in Europe and South Africa this ...
News Digest Item | 19 May 2017
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A significant drop in the price of PV modules has so far had only a moderate effect on solar power investments in Germany, according to website strom-report.de. Prices for PV modules fell by more than 70 percent between 2010 and 2016 while at the same ...
News Digest Item | 19 May 2017
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Germany needs a reform of its renewables support system to bring down costs for power consumers but Berlin lacks “the political will” to do anything before the federal elections in September, writes Angela Hennersdorf in an opinion piece for ...
News Digest Item | 19 May 2017
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“Citizens' energy is the big winner” of Germany’s first round of onshore wind power auctions, said Rainer Baake, state secretary in the economy ministry (BMWi), in a press release on the results. 93 percent of all successful bids for the auctioned ...
News Digest Item | 19 May 2017
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Economy minister Brigitte Zypries cautioned her Social Democrat colleague, environment minister Barbara Hendricks, not to agree to “unreflected compromises” in the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS) reform negotiations, reports Frankfurter Allgemeine ...
News Digest Item | 18 May 2017
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The presidency of this November’s UN Climate Change Conference, the government of Fiji, is “very optimistic” about the outcome of COP23, while the US administration still has not decided on its international climate policy positions. “The rest of the ...
News Digest Item | 18 May 2017
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The changes brought about in Germany’s energy supply structure by the Energiewende pose a great threat to the country’s municipal utilities, Thomas Brucker writes in a study for the SPD-associated Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES). Regional energy ...
News Digest Item | 18 May 2017
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Germany’s cabinet has adopted a draft regulation for the introduction of common tenders for solar and onshore wind power installations, the Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) said in a press release. The tenders will be tested in a “pilot ...
News Digest Item | 18 May 2017
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Strategies by German households to save energy are very different across the country’s regions, a survey by energy service provider Techem has shown. “People in Saarland are national champions when it comes to using energy saving lamps,” Techem says in a ...
News Digest Item | 18 May 2017
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The collapse of the German solar PV modules industry and declining job numbers in the renewables sector as a whole show the difficulties in weaning a sector off financial support, writes Christoph Eisenring in Neue Zürcher Zeitung. This invalidated “the ...
News Digest Item | 18 May 2017
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The German government is sticking to its goal of bringing one million electric vehicles onto the road by 2020, even though Chancellor Angela Merkel believes it will likely be missed. “The government and the National Platform for Electric Mobility are ...
News Digest Item | 18 May 2017
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German households consumed 2.1 percent more energy in 2015 than in the year before, Germany’s Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said in a press release. “The increase was observed for all energy sources except electricity,” it explained. Seventy ...
News Digest Item | 17 May 2017
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Chancellor Angela Merkel has angered her coalition partner SPD (Social Democratic Party) with her statement that Germany will probably miss its target of bringing one million electric cars on to the roads by 2020, writes news agency dpa. Economy minister ...
News Digest Item | 17 May 2017
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The construction of the natural gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 from Russia to Germany – scheduled to start this year – could be put back by months or years. The delay could be caused by plans by the EU Commission to negotiate a separate regulatory framework ...
News Digest Item | 17 May 2017
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More than 30 foundations from eight countries have initiated the Foundations Platform (F20) “to further shape the political discourse on future sustainability measures before, during and after the G20 summit” on 7-8 July in Hamburg. The goal is to ...
News Digest Item | 17 May 2017
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The Social Democratic Party (SPD) wants to develop a national climate protection law and introduce a CO₂ floor price, the party says in a first draft for the federal election campaign programme. "We will continue to develop European emissions trading ...
News Digest Item | 17 May 2017
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26 May 2017 Local energy transitions across Germany play a key role in achieving the goals of the national Energiewende. In this factsheet, we provide some of the facts and figures key to understanding the power, opportunities and challenges of localities ...
Factsheet | 26 May 2017
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Energy experts of Germany’s grand coalition of conservatives (CDU/CSU) and Social Democrats (SPD) have rebuffed the Green Party’s plans for an accelerated coal exit. “We cannot phase out both nuclear and coal-fired power production within 15 or 20 years,” ...
News Digest Item | 16 May 2017
