#GermanEnergyFact #9 ctd.

The wholesale price increase was driven by a surge in natural #gas prices.
Further, low generation from hydro power and French nuclear contributed to high prices.
Generators with low marginal costs have benefited a lot from this - which lead to a EU-wide temporary revenue cap for generators.
Any technology that could offer temporal #flexibility must have made tons of money in 2022. Probably a golden year for electricity #storage and other flex technologies!

#GermanEnergyFact #9: wholesale electricity prices

Data provided by the Bundesnetzagentur / SMARD platform shows that 2022 was a record-breaking year in terms of #electricity #prices: https://www.smard.de/home/downloadcenter/download-marktdaten/?downloadAttributes=%7B%22selectedCategory%22:3,%22selectedSubCategory%22:8,%22selectedRegion%22:%22DE-LU%22,%22selectedFileType%22:%22XLSX%22,%22from%22:1609455600000,%22to%22:1672527599999%7D

The average day-ahead wholesale price in more than doubled from around 97 €/MWh in 2021 to 235 €/MWh in 2022
The highest hourly price increased from 620 to 871 €/MWh
The price spread also increased a lot: the interquartile range increased from 59 to 176 €/MWh

#GermanEnergyFact #8 ctd.

So I'm clearly not an expert when it comes to supply and demand of oil products; but I found it quite interesting that the sales of diesel fuel hardly decreased despite much higher prices, and gasoline sales even slightly increased.

The post-pandemic surge in jet fuel use is also striking (and worrying).

Thanks for following me through this first week, which largely focused on indicators of #energy consumption. Next week may see a focus on energy #prices, stay tuned!

#GermanEnergyFact #8: oil

I'm wrapping up this first week with some #oil consumption data for (sorry I'm a bit late, this was a family day), based on recent #AGEB data: https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/01-Mineraloel_2022.pdf

Sales of #diesel fuel decreased by 1% from 2021 to 2022, #gasoline +4%, jet fuel +44% (!)
Mio t are hard to deal with, so here are derived liter/capita numbers: ~490 l diesel, ~270 l gasoline, ~130 l jet fuel per person. Note: these averages includes all people, also those who never drive or fly.

#GermanEnergyFact #7 ctd.

Zooming in on #gas savings made by households and commercial consumers: in the #openenergytracker, we regularly differentiate savings components related to temperature and to changes in behavior: https://openenergytracker.org/en/docs/germany/naturalgas/

We find that households and commerce have consistently saved gas by changing their behavior since September 2022. Except for the Christmas week it seems - maybe people wanted to have it as cosy as usual during these days? Great work by @aroth

#GermanEnergyFact #7: natural #gas

Yesterday, the Bundesnetzagentur released new data on natural gas consumption in 2022: https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Gasversorgung/aktuelle_gasversorgung/Rueckblick/start.html

Overall gas consumption in 2022 was 847 TWh, 17.6% less than 2021
Households and commerce reduced consumption by 19.1% (wow!), industry by 16.6% compared to 2021
Savings were driven by much-increased gas prices, warmer weather, and changes in heating behavior
Some data discrepancies between BNetzA and AGEB data, but savings trend is similar

#GermanEnergyFact #6 ctd.

Using these numbers, you can calculate an average efficiency of #electricity generation from #lignite of slightly below 40% in 2022.
That is, around 178 TWh of primary energy from lignite went through the chimneys and cooling towers of power plants unused - around 2100 kWh per capita

#endcoal #leaveitintheground Photo: @mariusmichusch

#GermanEnergyFact #6 is even more dirty than the last one: #lignite

Here is most recent #AGEB data on lignite for 2022: https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/BK-KJ22-erste-Schatzung-09.12.2022.pdf

Primary #energy consumption of lignite in increased by 5% in 2022 vs. 2021. #wrongtrend
The overall consumption in 2022 was 329 TWh. That is nearly 4000 kWh per capita #thatsalot!
Around 90% of this was used for #electricity generation, which was also up by around 5% vs. 2021, driven by exploding electricity prices

#GermanEnergyFact #5 ctd.

The increase in hard #coal consumption in 2022 was particularly high for coal used in power plants (+16%), driven by a surge in #electricity prices and increased electricity exports.
In contrast, coal used for steel making decreased (-6%). This goes hand in hand with a decrease in steel production of roughly the same size (compare German steel industry press release https://www.stahl-online.de/medieninformationen/rohstahlproduktion-in-deutschland-november-2022/)

#GermanEnergyFact #5: It gets dirty - lets talk about coal.

After two unplanned digressions (LNG and electric cars), I now return to primary #energy consumption facts for , this time focusing on hard #coal. I use new #AGEB data available here: https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/03-Steinkohle_2022.pdf

Overall coal consumption increased by nearly 5% in 2022 vs. 2021. #wrongdirection
Overall consumption in 2022 was 323 TWh, or nearly 4000 kWh per capita. #thisisstillalot

#GermanEnergyFact #4 ctd.

Für alle, die es lieber auf Deutsch lesen: zoombare Abbildungen zum Dezember-Rekord bei der #Elektromobilität sowie zur erreichten ersten Million bei der Bestandsflotte batterieelektrischer #Pkw gibt es jetzt auch als kleinen Blog #5 im #DIW #Ampelmonitor #Energiewende: https://www.diw.de/de/diw_01.c.862674.de/nachrichten/ampel-monitor_energiewende__5__eine_million_elektrofahrzeuge__zulassungsrekord_im_dezember.html
#Elektroauto #KBA

#GermanEnergyFact #4 ctd.

That is, more than 55% of all new cars in December 2022 had a plug . In the very motherland of the internal combustion engine
This record month was probably driven by reduced purchase subsidies from January 2023 on: no more subsidies for plug-in hybrids, and max. subsidy for BEV now €4500 (was 6000€).
Also important: with this record month, the fleet of pure battery-electric cars in now surpassed 1 million
Still way to go to reach 15 mio by 2030...

#GermanEnergyFact #4: Electric vehicles

Again, I wanted to continue with energy consumption facts... but because of current events, I HAVE to talk about electric cars! Today new must-see #KBA data came out. All data and zoomable graphs also available in the #openenergytracker: https://openenergytracker.org/en/docs/germany/emobility/

December 2022: Highest-ever share of battery-electric vehicles (#BEV) in new #car registrations in , 33.2%!
Also, a record share for plug-in hybrids (#PHEV) in December with 22.2%.

#GermanEnergyFact #3 ctd.

Since September 2022, the residential and commercial sectors in already saved natural #gas equivalent to 21.5 (!) average #LNG tankers purely because of changes in behavior. This is what my colleagues @aroth and Felix Schmidt found in an analysis that we constantly update on the #DIW #Ampelmonitor #Energiewende: https://www.diw.de/en/diw_01.c.841560.en/ampel-monitor_energiewende__monitor_of_the_german__traffic_light__coalition___s_energy_transition_targets.html#ab_862329

More graphs and info on the methods used are available in the #openenergytracker: https://openenergytracker.org/en/docs/germany/naturalgas/

#GermanEnergyFact #3: #LNG

I planned to post more facts about German energy consumption in this first week of the new year, but for a current occasion, here is a small digression: Today, the first ever (regular) #LNG tanker #MariaEnergy arrived in Germany.

Not so fun fact: it is natural #gas produced from #fracking.

Story: https://www.dw.com/en/first-lng-tanker-arrives-at-germanys-new-floating-terminal/a-64272015

While this first ever #LNG shipment received a lot of media attention, and it certainly is a significant event, let's put it in perspective:

#GermanEnergyFact #2 ctd.
The share of natural #gas in fossil primary energy consumption increased from 18% in 1990 to 35% in 2020; in line with a narrative of natural gas a "bridge fuel" for the #energytransition.
This trend reversed in 2022, driven by Russia's attack on #Ukraine and its consequences for German gas supply: gas consumption decreased by 15% (!) between 2021 and 2022.
Conversely, the consumption of both hard #coal and #lignite increased by 5% each, and oil by 3% 2021-2022.

#GermanEnergyFact #2 ctd.
In 2022, fossil primary energy consumption slightly decreased again, driven by soaring #energyprices.
The government aims to achieve #climateneutrality by 2045. As there is no explicit target or path for phasing out fossil primary energy consumption, we assume an indicative linear reduction path between 2021, the starting year of the current German coalition, and 2045
The 2022 fossil primary energy consumption is above that path (zoomed in graph).

#GermanEnergyFact #2: Let's have a closer look at the development of the fossil part of primary energy consumption in . We regularly track this in the #openenergytracker, where I also take the following graphs from. Zoom- & clickable graphs and underlying data here: https://openenergytracker.org/en/docs/germany/energyconsumption/#fossil-energy-primary-consumption

Between 1990-2022, fossil #primaryenergyconsumption decreased by 28%.
2020 saw the lowest consumption so far, driven by the pandemic.
In 2021, consumption increased again because of economic recovery.

#GermanEnergyFact #1 ctd.

To put the German ~40,000 kWh per capita consumption into comparison: According to @ourworldindata (only 2021 data available so far), the per capita PEC is about twice the average, around a third more than 's, and a bit above the average.

But it is only about two thirds of the per capita PEC, and a bit more than half of the .

Sources:
AGEB: https://ag-energiebilanzen.de/energieverbrauch-faellt-2022-auf-niedrigsten-stand-seit-der-wiedervereinigung/
Or World in Data: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-energy-stacked?country=Africa~Asia~AUS~CHN~European+Union+%2827%29~DEU~OWID_WRL~USA~GBR~South+America~ZAF~SAU~QAT

Next #GermanEnergyFact will be shorter, promise!

#GermanEnergyFact #1 ctd.

If you think that the renewable share is still fairly small, and the #Energiewende needs to speed up, you are right! But also consider that a shift toward wind & solar and electrification of heating and mobility "automatically" decrease primary energy consumption, as it is much less wasteful compared to, e.g., electricity generation in thermal power plants and internal combustion engines. So expect overall PEC to decrease and the RES share to increase fairly quickly.