French government concerned about German energy transition
In September, the French Center of Strategic Analysis produced a paper listing its concerns about its neighbor's transition from fossil and nuclear to renewables. While the study is not without its flaws, it nonetheless reflects what Germany's biggest neighbor feels – and may be a good general indicator of how some of Germany's neighbors feel left out.
In a report entitled "Is the German energy transition sustainable?" (in English), the Centre d'analyse stratégique (CAS) presents the French government's concerns about what neighboring Germany is doing in its energy policy a few months after President Hollande took office. Interestingly, the paper does not define what it means by "sustainable" and otherwise mainly focuses on the impact of Germany's Energiewende on European power supply. The questions the paper actually addresses come on the second page: what economic, technological, and societal challenges does Germany face, and how does the Energiewende fit into European energy policy?
One primary concern that the French report has is that Germany will be dependent upon its neighbors for imports because renewables will not be able to meet demand: "Germany will probably only be able to count on limited energy imports, because some of its neighbours, such as Switzerland or Belgium are themselves anticipating an energy deficit." The report does not mention that, at the moment, France relies on power imports from Germany to prevent blackouts or that both Switzerland and Belgium have resolved to phase out nuclear. Nonetheless, the CAS's concern reflects similar statements from Switzerland, Poland, and the Czech Republic, all of whom are concerned about the impact of intermittent renewable power from Germany on their grids – though it seems at times that the concern is less about grid reliability than about profits as renewables cut into production of conventional power.
The CAS proposes that a capacity market be established in Germany to ensure that firms maintain enough generating capacity to prevent power outages and points out that France already has such a solution. But the CAS claims that this option would "put renewable energies at a disadvantage and increase their costs," which is allegedly why Germany's Environmental Minister rejected the idea in August. In fact, German proponents of renewables are eager to talk about capacity markets – from the WWF to solar researcher Eicke Weber.
A skewed depiction
At times, the paper is outdated, while at other points it seems sloppy, if not outright intentionally misleading. One example of outdated estimates comes when the CAS expresses its concern that Germany will not meet its plans to expand its grid by adding 4,500 kilometers of new high-voltage lines, but of course the authors could not have known in September that proponents of renewables were right – these lines are not all needed. Germany's Network Agency has since drastically reduced the number of lines needed to 2,800.
Elsewhere, the paper writes that photovoltaics "accounts for only 3.1 percent" of German power consumption; the paper was published in September, and the official German figures published in July for the first half of 2012 revealed that photovoltaics made up 5.3 percent of power supply. This information could have been included in the publication, which elsewhere refers to data from August 2012.
Throughout, the CAS seems to be driving an agenda. For instance, no mention is made of Germany's contribution to bringing down the cost of solar, which the French apparently believe is a solely Chinese success story; then, the success of Chinese manufacturers is given as the reason why so many German firms have gone bankrupt – but the paper does not say what this has to do with the Energiewende. Instead, the CAS seems intent on listing everything negative it can find without making relations clear.
The CAS begins lumping all kinds of things together when it tries to give an example of the "fickleness of public policy" in Germany. Germans can think of lots of ways the Merkel coalition has been fickle: the sudden shutdown of nuclear along with a slew of new energy laws hastily adopted in the summer of 2011. But the example of fickleness that the CAS chooses is not something Germans would have thought of: "the guaranteed feed-in tariff." Aside from rates for solar, there have been no major changes to feed-in tariffs recently. Incongruously, the CAS then writes that, partly as a result of changes in FITs, RWE and Eon announced job cuts in August 2012. Renewables International would add that these firms are also raking in profits in 2012.
Later, the CAS comes up with a twist on the Europe-wide blackout on November 4, 2006: "a simple incident on a line in the North of Germany while the wind turbines were operating at full capacity." In fact, it was Eon that disconnected a power cable and failed to take into account distributed wind and CHP in its planning, as the official UCTE report (PDF) found. The CAS then claims that the n-1 safety rule can no longer be observed on the German grid, and that Dutch grid operators want Germans to pay for the stability of the grid. Unfortunately, the CAS does not provide a source for the claim about n-1, which may be based on a misunderstanding – the wind sector might be willing to build its own dedicated power lines. And the CAS also fails to point out that it is the Dutch government itself that is failing to invest in German grid expansion via its state-owned German grid operator.
The CAS then undiplomatically states that the "inhabitants of the land of Thuringia… do not understand that… they will not be able to take advantage of the electricity" from new transit power lines. No evidence is given for this slight, which stands in stark contrast to the Austrian head of REN21, who recently asked, "Where else but Germany can you talk about renewables with taxi drivers?"
The slights are not limited to Germany either. In an indication of how French authorities might respond to a public outcry after a French nuclear disaster, the CAS states that Japanese nuclear plants "had to wait for the green light from local authorities who saw in the situation an opportunity to open negotiations on topics not necessarily related to the safety of nuclear facilities." The paper does not admit that the French public may have had legitimate concerns along with whatever unrelated concerns – none are specified in the publication – may have been voiced.
Indeed, the paper gets off to a bad start in the very first sentence, where the Energiewende is called "a radical energy policy." In fact, Germany has quite modest targets compared to Denmark, which plans to go 100 percent renewable in all energy sectors by 2050. In contrast, Germany has no specific targets for renewables in the transport sector and merely plans to go 60 percent renewable in terms of gross energy consumption by 2050. And of course, France itself has a radical electricity supply; France gets more than 75 percent of its power from nuclear, with Belgium in a distant second place at above 50 percent – and again, Belgium has resolved to phase out nuclear.
The CAS points out that Germany mainly gets its energy from fossil fuel, with "a German household emitting more CO2 than a French one"; typically, no mention is made of per capita nuclear waste production – the world continues to count carbon emissions, not tons of nuclear waste.
So how does the paper answer its two main questions? First, the CAS writes that Germany's long-term success depends on technologies (particularly power storage) that have not yet been developed. In addition, societal support remains a crucial and will depend on the price tag.
Second, the paper does not really address how the German energy transition can be better embedded in European energy policy, but merely states that consultation is "more necessary than ever." The EU has always had very little in the way of energy policy, leaving these matters up to member states – one reason why France has been able to go 75 percent nuclear while neighboring Germany has gone 25 percent renewable. While there is a lot of talk about how Europe can further harmonize its energy policies, it would be wrong to single out Germany for allegedly going down a different path. In reality, every member state has always been allowed to do what it wants.
Finally, the CAS argues that "certain philosophers" in the German tradition have led to the environmental movement that opposes nuclear within the country. But in fact, France has such a tradition of skepticism against technology as well, including such authors as Bruno Latour and Jacques Ellul.
Overall, the study provides a good overview of the concerns that foreign skeptics have of the German Energiewende – though it fails to demonstrate that these concerns reflect the situation in Germany. (Craig Morris)
logicld: "This report has all the hallmarks of the nuclear industry : lies, manipulation of data, misrepresentation, and hiding the massive faults with nuclear."
Sounds like they are taking renewables seriously. This is not just leaning back and see how they fail.
Logicld, I do not say that the report provides a "good overview" of what the French think, but rather of what foreign skeptics think.
'Overall, the study provides a good overview of the concerns that foreign skeptics have of the German Energiewende' ... NO, it does not. The French government (I live in France) is heavily invested financially and emotionally in nuclear, and they are angry that a neighbor dare abandon their precious nuclear technology. The nuclear industry in France has huge sway over the government, and is the mouth behind this attack against renewables. This report has all the hallmarks of the nuclear industry : lies, manipulation of data, misrepresentation, and hiding the massive faults with nuclear. You lost all credibility when you summarize the report as "a good overview". This is a direct attack by the nuclear industry on the leading country abandoning it. And to top it off, it is France that DEPENDS on German electricity during cold winter weather (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/14/europe-power-supply-idUSL5E8DD87020120214 and http://cleantechnica.com/2012/02/09/clean-energy-loving-germany-increasingly-exporting-electricity-to-nuclear-heavy-france/).