Electricity from German plants increasingly cleaner

03.01.2025

Source: E & M powernews

The first year without energy from nuclear power plants did not lead to an increase in CO2 emissions. The decline in lignite and hard coal more than compensated for the increase in gas.

Not pure, but increasingly clean: electricity generation in Germany once again led to lower emissions of harmful CO2 in 2024. This is according to an analysis by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Fraunhofer ISE) from January 2. It concerns net generation, which excludes power plants' own consumption.

According to the report, 62.7 percent of public electricity generation came from renewable generation plants. Fraunhofer ISE speaks of a "record share". The amount of green electricity reached 275.2 billion kWh. This is 4.4 percent more than in 2023 (267 billion kWh).

The electricity mix, which ultimately corresponds to the composition of the energy reaching households, sees renewables slightly lower overall. It is then effectively 56% and therefore 0.7 points more than in the previous year.

This is due to the fact that the load on the grid (total: 462 billion kWh compared to 458 billion kWh in 2023) does not include self-consumption by power plants. This amounted to 12.4 billion kWh for solar power plants, for example, and will also increase in 2024. The load also does not include pumped-storage power consumption, although it always includes grid losses.

First year without nuclear power: more gas and less coal used for electricity generation

Fraunhofer ISE believes that German electricity is becoming increasingly clean because nuclear power was completely phased out in 2024 for the first time since 1962 and conventional power plants nevertheless produced less overall. Since 2014, emissions have fallen by more than half, from 312 million tons to around 152 million tons of CO2 per year. German power generation is therefore 58 percent "cleaner" than in the first year of data collection (1990).

The contribution of lignite fell to 71.1 billion kWh in 2024 (minus 8.4 percent compared to the 77.6 billion kWh in 2023). This includes own consumption in the industrial sector of 1.3 billion kWh. Net production from hard coal fell by more than a quarter (27.6%) to 24.2 billion kWh (2023: 33.4 billion kWh). Hard coal was no longer used in industry itself.

Natural gas contributed more to public electricity production: 48.4 billion kWh represents an increase of 9.5 percent. Furthermore, industry used this energy source for a significant amount of 25.6 billion kWh.

As net electricity production has only been recorded since 2002, Fraunhofer ISE uses a different figure for the significance of the decline in coal, namely gross electricity generation. This reached around 108 billion kWh for lignite and hard coal in 2024, which corresponds to the level in 1957.

Wind power slightly weaker, but clearly number one

Wind power remains the leader among green energies with 136.4 billion kWh and a 33% share of electricity generation for public consumption. However, its contribution in the previous year was slightly higher at 139 billion kWh. Onshore turbines generated less electricity: 110.7 billion kWh compared to 115.3 billion kWh in 2023. Marine wind farms, on the other hand, improved by 2.2 billion kWh to 25.7 billion kWh.

Solar plants are up by around 18% (10.8 billion kWh) and generate a total of 72.2 billion kWh. After deducting self-consumption, 59.8 billion kWh remained for the public grid. That is 14 percent of net electricity generation. At 21.7 billion kWh, hydropower was slightly above the previous year's figure (19.7 billion kWh), while biomass accounted for 36 billion kWh.

Electricity imports from other countries increased once again compared to 2023 (9.2 billion kWh) to 24.9 billion kWh. Fraunhofer ISE attributes this to lower generation costs and lower prices elsewhere in the summer. Imports fell in November, partly because electricity exchange prices rose, making fossil fuel-based electricity generation more profitable. The institute concludes that Germany's power plant capacities were therefore also sufficient to export electricity in winter.

Fraunhofer ISE based its analysis on data from the energy-charts.info platform.

Author: Volker Stephan