Germany revises 2030 power demand estimate up by 13%

LONDON (ICIS)–The German federal minister of economics Peter Altmaier said on 13 July that the country’s electricity consumption will increase to 645-665TWh by 2030, up from 580TWh estimated in March 2020.

The range also exceeds the most recent ICIS analytics power demand forecast for 2030 of 584TWh.

The electricity consumption forecast for 2030 was adjusted due to the new version of the Climate Protection Act and the new ambitious climate targets approved at the end of June 2021, Altmaier said.

A detailed analysis of electricity consumption will be available in the autumn of 2021.

RENEWABLE CAPACITY ADDITIONS

As Germany phases out nuclear and coal plants, the country will become more dependent on imports, especially on days with less wind and solar availability, which are the main sources of renewable energy in the German electricity grid.

With even greater power demand anticipated by 2030, Germany requires more installed renewable capacity to avoid a supply risk and becoming even more dependent on imports.

Altmaier targeted German offshore wind capacity of 40GW by 2040, double the existing target for 2030. This would undershoot ICIS analytics’ current 2040 forecast of 49GW. Altmaier noted that the target may be increased, but complex challenges remain regarding impacts for the environment and sectors such as fishing.

Altmaier said that solar capacity needs to increase, but that with increasing social acceptance of onshore wind, the country expects to meet its 2030 target, which is 71GW, up from 56GW currently.

HYDROGEN

Altmaier also revised German hydrogen production assumptions. Green hydrogen production is expected to reach 19TWh by 2030, an increase of 5TWh on the country’s national hydrogen plan released in 2020.

The minister stated that a large proportion of Germany’s future hydrogen would need to be imported.

According to the national strategy, German hydrogen demand is expected to reach between 90-110TWh by 2030.

This means Germany will need to look to other potential producers of low-carbon hydrogen to make up the shortfall in supply.

One potential source of large-scale low-carbon hydrogen could be via the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Nord Stream 2 CEO Matthias Warnig told ICIS on 11 July.

The Russia-Germany pipeline can deliver up to 55 billion cubic metres (bcm)/year of natural gas, however Warnig stated in a recent interview that the line could also be converted to carry hydrogen.

He said that there is a very clear goal of having Nord Stream 2 ready to transport hydrogen within 10 years, and that preliminary investigations had been carried out exploring this potential.

Russian producer Gazprom, the owner of Nord Stream 2, is currently exploring various hydrogen production methods. This could mean that either green or blue hydrogen is transported to Germany via Nord Stream 2 in the future.

A recent ICIS analysis also showed that Denmark could be well positioned to supply Germany with green hydrogen. European energy infrastructure company Gasunie and Danish energy system operator Energinet released a technical study towards the end of April that showed Denmark could produce up to 13TWh of hydrogen by 2030.

German hydrogen demand is the highest in all of Europe. In 2018, hydrogen demand totalled 72TWh, roughly 22% of Europe’s annual demand.

Germany’s current hydrogen strategy outlines having 5GW of electrolyser capacity online by 2030, with potential to increase this by another 5GW between 2035-2040.

Additional reporting by Laura Mendes