Insight, outlook, overview, perspective.

Despite the upcoming European elections in June 2024, there are some important political initiatives on the agenda this year that will have a decisive influence on the development of many cleantech applications. We have taken a closer look at the initiatives at national and European level and assessed which scenarios are likely or unlikely in the sectors.

The German electricity and heating sector is facing significant changes. On the one hand, renewable, volatile generation plants must be integrated and, on the other, fossil fuels must be decommissioned. In particular, flexible generation plants must ensure a reliable supply during dark doldrums.

In the joint paper with the flex experts, we show that the potential of biogas has been significantly underestimated to date, that it can contribute to reducing the costs of the energy transition in local storage power plants, to relieving the grid and to structural change in rural areas, while at the same time promoting nature conservation and the sustainability of agriculture.

The International Institute for Sustainability Analysis and Strategies (IINAS) has prepared a study on behalf of DWR eco GmbH that makes the emissions profile of the current and future natural gas mix in Germany more transparent and reassesses the role of methane in the national primary energy mix. The study comes to the conclusion that the specific emissions of the German natural gas mix will remain unchanged until 2030 according to the current status. The share of green gases such as hydrogen will also remain low in 2030 and will not be able to contribute to an improved emissions profile overall. The still significant primary energy share of natural gas (27%) is thus not compatible with the goal of climate neutrality formulated in the coalition agreement and a Paris-compatible emissions reduction path.

According to a G7 decision, Germany plans a complete decarbonisation of the electricity market by 2035. In the process, renewable energies such as wind and photovoltaics (PV) are to be expanded from 45% to 80% by 2030. Due to political aspirations for independence from Russian natural gas, gas-fired power plants were seen as flexible backup options for renewables. But due to an energy crisis, alternative flexible power generation options are now being explored. The possibility of making the existing biogas plant fleet more flexible has so far received little attention from legislators. A study investigates the potential of biogas and biomethane to enable a secure, climate-neutral and cost-efficient electricity system. The study comes from Energy2market GmbH, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment, Energy gGmbH and DBFZ Deutsches Biomasseforschungszentrum gemeinnützige GmbH. The study also sheds light on the potential to replace natural gas with biogas and examines the requirements for the generation profile and flexibility of future biogas plants in the electricity system.

The Russian war of aggression has highlighted the dependencies of European energy markets on imports and their weaknesses. Especially in the heating and transport sectors, there is great potential to replace fossil energy imports. In the heat sector, which mainly relies on fossil natural gas, the need to mobilise domestic heat generation options is emphasised. A white paper by DWR eco explores the role of deep geothermal energy in decarbonising the energy system and strengthening domestic supply chains.

So far, deep geothermal energy has been neglected in the federal government's plans to address potential natural gas shortages. The white paper proposes policy measures needed to unlock the potential of geothermal energy, establish climate-neutral supply chains and incorporate them into short- and long-term planning.

In the new report prepared together with EIT InnoEnergy and Climate-Kic, we have developed proposals for locating companies in the green hydrogen sector or in battery and car production. We were supported by representatives of Volkswagen AG, Skeleton Technologies, Siemens the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus.

Our studies primarily address the question of how regional entrepreneurship can be stimulated by an accompanying funding regime and how innovations in the areas of climate protection, energy and circular economy can be made marketable. the economic renewal of the affected regions, approximately 40 billion euros have been made available.