German Energy Market Today
Extract from the DVFG annual report in 2007
The German energy market is a very exciting landscape. In 2007, primary energy consumption in Germany actually decreased because of the awareness that people must start optimizing energy use and saving energy.
The Arbeitsgemeinschaft Energiebilanzen* demonstrated a decrease of 5% to 330.4 million tonnes oil equivalent (TOE).
Mineral oil consumption sank to 9.7% to 111.3 million TOE and is at its lowest consumption rate since 1970. With nearly 34% of the German energy mix, mineral oil remains the most important source of energy in Germany.
With 74.9 million TOE, the natural gas consumption was lower at around 4.5% than in 2006. Strong sales in the household, trade, trade and services segments, increases were registered during the generation of electricity and in industry.
Coal consumption was at around 1.5% on 46.6 million TOE. Strongest demands came from the steel industry and the electricity supply industry.
Also brown coal consumption rose for the first time for years to around 2.8% to 38.6 million TOE.
Because some nuclear power stations have not been active, the contribution of nuclear energy to the German energy mix fell to around 16%. Consumption of hydro power rose easily to around 0.8%. There was little increase in wind energy consumption, which stayed at around 31.6% 3.5 million TOE.
Renewable energies did however develop the consumption of their energies with 5.4 to 6.6%. The increase of consumption of alternative sources of energy was at 14.1%.
The Arbeitsgemeinschaft Energiebilanzen is an organization created from several energy associations. They provide an assessment on the German energy market regularly each year. For more information on this organization, please click here (the site is in German): www.ag-energiebilanzen.de
