The Convergence of Power, Gas & Renewables By Prof.-Dr. Hartmut
With its climate policy goals the German govern
power grids face severe challenges and have to
Krause, Prof.-Dr.
ment has set the course for a fundamental trans
transport electricity in the opposite direction
Gerald Linke and
formation of energy supply systems. By 2050,
than they have been designed for1.
Gert Müller-Syring
CO2 emissions in Germany are to be reduced by
From today’s viewpoint, successful integration
at least 80% and primary energy consumption
of increasing volumes of power from renewable
by 50%. Higher shares of renewable energies,
sources requires expansion and reinforcement
energy saving and better energy efficiencies are
of electricity networks, additional load mitigation
therefore at the top of the political agenda.
measures and alternative transportation and
The impact of these political requirements is
storage technologies. The existing gas infra
particularly felt in electricity generation. In the
structure can contribute to make these measures
last two decades, green power generation has
a success, for example, for load mitigation by
grown from less than 20 TWh to almost 160
using bivalent gas assets or the storage of huge
TWh (Figure 1) reflecting more than 25% of total German power consumption. In regions with high production capacities and weaker residual demand, the share of renewable power far exceeds 100%, showing clearly that the
1 Gert Müller-Syring, Marco Henel, Hartmut Krause, Hans Rasmusson, Herwig Mlaker, Wolfgang Köppel, Thomas Höcher, Michael Sterner and Tobias Trost “Power-to-gas – storage concepts for renewable energy” Gas for Energy, no. 01, pp. 40-48, 2012
v Figure 1.
Power in GWh
Development of renewable power production in Germany 180,000
EEG 1. January 2009
160,000 140,000 EEG 1. August 2004
120,000 100,000 80,000 EEG 1. April 2000
60,000 StrEG
40,000 1. January 1991
Novelle BauGB November 1997
20,000
91 19 92 19 93 19 94 19 95 19 96 19 97 19 98 19 99 20 00 20 01 20 02 20 03 20 04 20 05 20 06 20 07 20 08 20 09 20 10 20 11 20 12 20 13 20 14
19
19
90
0
Photovoltaics
Biomasss*
Wind Power
Hydro 1)
*solid, liquid, gaseous biomass, waste incl. landfillgas, biogenic fuels. Geothermal not included (share 2012: 25,24GWh) Abbrevations: StrEG - Stromeinspeisegesetz; BauBG - Baugesetzbuch; EEG - Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz Source: until 2012 BMU Arbeitsgruppe Erneuerbare Energien-Statistik Stand: Feb. 2013, 2013 AG Energiebilanzen Stand 12/13, 2014 AG Energiebilanzen 12/2014
78 T h e C o n v e r g e n c e o f P o w e r , G a s & R e n e w a b l e s
