Country Focus: Germany
Germany was a pioneer in creating a solid legislative framework supporting renewables and energy efficiency. The renewable energy feed-in law issued in 1992 triggered a boom in renewable power generation, starting with wind energy, followed by biogas and photovoltaic. Today Germany has the largest installed capacities worldwide in all of these domains.
Opportunities:
According to a recent study by the German Energy Agency (DENA), considerable storage capacity will be necessary in the near future to fully incorporate renewable energy sources in an efficient, cost-effective manner. Already, new energy storage technologies are being developed in Germany, including battery technologies, fuel cells and hydrogen-based solutions, compressed air energy storage, along with ICT-based solutions such as smart grids and e-mobility applications. The necessity for more energy storage capacity points to significant market growth in this field. 16 percent of Germany's energy needs are already met by renewable sources. The federal government has set a target of 30 percent for the year 2020. With this increase of new energy sources, the challenge of storing and managing energy has arisen. Fluctuation in the energy supply, depending on how strong the wind blows or when the sun shines, for example, has created a need for creative solutions.
Germany has very strong R&D capability and has a lot of interests investing in solar energy applications as well as advanced engineering systems and energy efficiency, waste management applications. It is now the world’s 2nd largest cleantech investor in terms of dollars.
