Germany has ambitious plans for both electric cars and renewable energy. But as things stand, writes Dénes Csala of Lancaster University, Germany’s well-meaning but contradictory ambitions would actually boost emissions by an amount comparable with the present-day emissions of Uruguay or the state of Montana. Courtesy The Conversation.
In October 2016 the Bundesrat, the country’s upper legislative chamber, called for Germany to support a phase-out of gasoline vehicles by 2030. The resolution isn’t official government policy, but even talk of such a ban sends a strong signal towards the country’s huge car industry. So what if Germany really did go 100% electric by 2030?
To environmentalists, such a change sounds perfect. After all, road transport is responsible for a big chunk of our emissions and replacing regular petrol vehicles with electric cars is a great way to cut the carbon footprint.
But it isn’t that simple. The basic problem is that an electric car running on power generated by dirty coal or gas actually creates more emissions than a car that burns petrol. For such a switch to actually reduce net emissions, the electricity that powers those cars must be renewable. And, unless things change, Germany is unlikely to have enough green energy in time.
Adding up the extra renewable electricity needed to power millions of cars, and that required to replace nuclear plants, gives us a total of 321 TWh of new generation required by 2030. That’s equivalent to dozens of massive new power stations
After all, news of the potential petrol car ban came just after the chancellor, Angela Merkel, had announced she would slow the expansion in new wind farms as too much intermittent renewable power was making the grid unstable. Meanwhile, after Fukushima, Germany has pledged to retire its entire nuclear reactor fleet by 2022.
In an analysis published in Nature, my colleague Harry Hoster and I have looked at how Germany’s electricity and transport policies are intertwined. They each serve the noble goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Yet, when combined, they might actually lead to increased emissions.
We investigated what it would take for Germany to keep to its announcements and fully electrify its road transportation – and what that would mean for emissions. Our research shows that you can’t simply erase fossil fuels from both energy and transport in one go, as Germany may be about to find out.
Less energy, more electricity
It’s certainly true that replacing internal combustion vehicles with electric ones would overnight lead to a huge reduction in Germany’s energy needs. This is because electric cars are far more efficient. When petrol is burned, just 30% or less of the energy released is actually used to move the car forwards – the rest goes into exhaust heat, water pumps and other inefficiencies. Electric cars do lose some energy through recharging their batteries, but overall at least 75% goes into actual movement.
Each year, German vehicles burn around 572 terawatt-hour (TWh)‘s worth of liquid fuels. Based on the above efficiency savings, a fully electrified road transport sector would use around 229 TWh. So Germany would use less energy overall (as petrol is a source of energy) but it would need an astonishing amount of new renewable or nuclear generation.
And there is another issue: Germany also plans to phase out its nuclear power plants, ideally by 2022, but 2030 at the latest. This creates a further void of 92TWh to be filled.
Adding up the extra renewable electricity needed to power millions of cars, and that required to replace nuclear plants, gives us a total of 321 TWh of new generation required by 2030. That’s equivalent to dozens of massive new power stations.
If Germany really does want a substantial reduction in vehicle emissions, its energy and transport policies must work in sync
Even if renewable energy expands at the maximum rate allowed by Germany’s latest plan, it will still only cover around 63 TWh of what’s required. Hydro, geothermal and biomass don’t suffer from the same intermittency problems as wind or solar, yet the country is already close to its potential in all three.
This therefore means the rest of the gap – an enormous 258 TWh – will have to be filled by coal or natural gas. That is the the current total electricity consumption of Spain, or ten Irelands.
Germany could choose to fill the gap entirely with coal or gas plants. However, relying entirely on coal would lead to further annual emissions of 260 million tonnes of carbon dioxide while gas alone would mean 131m tonnes.
By comparison, German road transport currently emits around 156m tonnes of CO2, largely from car exhausts. Therefore, unless the electricity shortfall is filled almost entirely with new natural gas plants, Germany could switch to 100% electric cars and it would still end up with a net increase in emissions.
Germany’s electricity sector in 2030? Denes Csala, Author provided
The above chart shows a more realistic scenario where half of the necessary electricity for electric cars would come from new gas plants and half from new coal plants. We have assumed both coal and gas would become 25% more efficient. In this relatively likely scenario, the emissions of the road transportation sector actually increase by 20%, or 32 million tonnes of CO2 (comparable to Uruguay or Montana’s annual emissions).
If Germany really does want a substantial reduction in vehicle emissions, its energy and transport policies must work in sync. Instead of capping new solar plants or wind farms, it should delay the nuclear phase-out and focus on getting better at predicting electricity demand and storing renewable energy.
Editor’s Note
Dénes Csala is Lecturer in Energy Storage Systems Dynamics at Lancaster University. This article was first published on The Conversation and is republished here with permission.
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Mike Parr says
Looking at the 321TWh another way – taking a 100% capacity factor (8400hrs) = 38GW. Off-shore Germany/Denmark has around a 50% CF so 72GW of off-shore wind would do the job. Problem is this would be around 7,200 10MW WTs – which is quite a lot & probably not do-able by 2030. Is it do-able at all? The UK resource for off-shore wind has been variously estimated at at 600GW (in an article in this august organ – no less) so you could argue that there ain’t a lack of wind, there ain’t a lack of sea-space & the way off-shore prices are going – it looks like costs will be OK. If Germany pulled its finger out wrt off-shore it could probably build out 30GW by 2030 – which would get it roughly half way there.
S. Herb says
As noted in the reference in the article to the ‘phase-out of …’ the Bundestag proposal was to stop sales of new combustion engine cars in 2030. This is wildly different from the 100% electric fleet in 2030 that the authors seem to assume, I don’t know whether this was carelessness or intention on their part. Additionally, the phase-in of lower carbon technologies is a matter of many decades in each of the energy-related sectors, and it is not reasonable to require precise synchrony between production and use. Politics is hard.
Jeffrey Michel says
The inaccuracies in the article begin with the fact that the Bundesrat resolution was passed on September 23, 2016, and not in October:
http://www.bundesrat.de/SharedDocs/drucksachen/2016/0301-0400/387-16(B).pdf
The Upper Chamber has recommended that the entire EU should be licensing only emission-free passenger cars (PKW) after 2030. Before that time, Germany should “evaluate the effectiveness of taxation and fee practices of the Member States regarding the promotion of emission-free mobility”, allowing investment security to be achieved for the corresponding “markets of the future”.
Helmut Frik says
What should this be? It’s almost unanderstandable.
A ban of new ICE cars in 2030 does not mena a vovernight excahnge off the car fleet, but a gradual phase oput of the ICE till 2050.
Coal phase out is sheduled for around 2040, if todays speed of coal phase out goes on it looks like it might be phased out sometimes between 2035 and 2040. Nobody intends to build any new coal capacity in germany, so to assume new coal capacity fo fuel a overnight change to BEV of all cars in 2030 fueld by coal plants is nothing more than a fairy tale, far far away from any reality.
Jon says
Hi Denes
Following up on previous comments to your article.
1. The proposal is on a phase out of combustion engine cars. Not gasoline cars as stated in the article and definitely not on all combustion engine cars on the road. There is an important difference in electrifying 3 mill yearly car sales vs. turning over a car fleet of 45 mill cars.
2. You say that “..German vehicles burn 572 TWh worth of liquid fuels per year”. This number is equivalent to 49 mtoe which, according to Eurostat, is Germany’s energy consumption in the road transport sector, i.e. including all trucks, buses, motorbikes etc. This means that you are not only calculating the electricity need of electrifying all cars on the road, but you are also including heavy duty vehicles on the road which easily doubles the energy need compared to only light duty vehicles.
If this is just a thought experiment to look at the electricity need of electrifying new car sales by 2030 you could do the following:
Total new car sales around 3 mill per year means that the accumulated electric cars on the road would probably not surpass 9 mill by 2030. Assuming 15 000 km travelled per year and 24 kWh per 100 km travelled (EPA rating for a Tesla model S) I get a yearly electricity demand of 32 TWh.
This is is less than Germany’s solar power production in 2015 (39 TWh).
Nigel West says
Around 250TWh of electricity to run a fully electrified transport system would require a massive increase in the size of Germany’s electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure. The infrastructure currently handles about 600TWh/year but is already ‘creaking’ under the strain of trying to cope with existing renewables.
Hugh Sharman says
German EV sales in 2016 were 27,404 (http://ev-sales.blogspot.dk/2017/01/germany-december-2016.html)
Germany’s total car sales in 2016, were 3,351,607, (http://www.best-selling-cars.com/germany/2016-full-year-germany-best-selling-car-manufacturers-brands/)
Some reports say EV sales are falling)
So if these sources are correct (I am not a car expert), EV sales constitute less than 1% of Germany’s 2016 market, despite massive political support for EV development in Germany. Rather, it seems that Germans are voting for fossil-fueled cars with their wallets. And woe betide any German Government, of whatever persuasion, to come between a German and his/her choice of car.
Andreas Graf says
I would point out that the “analysis published in Nature” is a reader correspondence of three short paragraphs, not a peer reviewed journal article. Moreover, the premise of the article is, don’t cap decarbonization through renewables and increase electricity demand. And yet, instead of saying lift the cap, the argument is do/and assume anything but. I’m a bit speechless…
Hans says
A more appropriate title for the article is:
Germany should accelerate RE growth to enable ICE car phase out.
Alkè says
The fact that Germany is planning to reduce the amount of gas emission is a good thing! But how? Electric cars are greener than traditional ones, but at the same time the manufacturing process is not so ecologic. We hope Germany will figure out a solution soon!