Germany continues to set the pace for renewables

Germany recently released a draft progress report on their Renewable Energy Sources Act which was adopted in 2000. The act established an advanced “feed-in tariff” that enabled any company or individual to sell renewable electricity into the power grid for a guaranteed, long-term price for each kilowatt-hour sold.

The report highlighted that:

• electricity from renewable energy had increased from 6.3 percent in 2000 to 12 percent in 2006.
• renewable energy used in Germany avoided the release of more than 100 million tons of CO2 in 2006.
• there were 240,000 people employed in the renewable energy sector in 2006, representing a 40-percent increase over 2004. More than half of these jobs were created by the Renewable Energy Sources Act.

It is expected that renewables will provide about 14% of Germany’s gross electricity by the end of this year, well ahead of the targets for 2010. As a result of this success, in July the German government has chosen to increase renewable energy to 27 percent of electricity by 2020 and at least 45 percent by 2030.

With the recent change of government here in Australia, we can only continue to pressure for such leadership from government.