Laying out key priorities for the EU’s upcoming Clean Industrial Deal, German Economy State Secretary Sven Giegold said on Monday (30 September) he wants the Commission to prioritise renewable energy, taking a tough line on nuclear power and France’s renewable targets.
Alongside a quicker roll-out of renewable energy facilitated by “further exemptions from [environmental impact] assessments,” Giegold outlined several other German priorities for the EU’s upcoming strategy.
Based on the 2030 renewable energy targets, the EU should also set up a 2040 framework, complemented by new, more ambitious targets for energy efficiency, he said.
“It should include new heating standards, a heat pump action plan and a renovation initiative,” he explained, noting a heat pump action plan was last shelved in 2023.
Hydrogen, made from renewables, should be governed by a “a pragmatic framework,” the German politician stressed, reiterating calls from his boss, Economy Minister Robert Habeck (Greens), to delay strict production rules into the late 2030s.
If artificial reservoirs were feasible, they would be better used to flatten the production from renewables.
In practice it is only feasible in areas that have existing natural geographic features.
Germany already have hydroelectricity accounting for 3% of their production, however 3% is nowhere near enough to neither flatten renewable or to modulate flat nuclear production to fit the daily volatile consumption.
Of course, they require the appropriate geographical features, but those features are relatively widely available in hilly landscapes, which are rather abundant in large parts of Germany.
The reasons why relatively few hydroelectric pump storage power plants have been built in Germany in the recent decades are entirely homemade. For once, the spirit of NIMBY is very strong in Germany, so if you’re planning to build something like that, you’ll be facing the wrath of a plethora of angry German Spießer forming citizens’ initiatives and fighting your project. On top of that, there is German bureaucracy, which will ensure, that the volume paperwork you’ll have to file for building your reservoir is sufficient for filling it up, should you happen to drop it in there. Then, there is the privatised power grid and its idiotic circumstances and rules, which make it unlikely for a pump storage power plant to be profitable, but thanks to the ideology of having privatised essential infrastructure, the state isn’t going to operate them.