Germany has allocated more than 260 billion euros ($275 billion) to overcome the immediate risks of the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, but the final solution to the problem will be much more expensive, if the country can do it at all, Bloomberg reported.
Bloomberg predicts that by 2030, the cost of future measures to protect the country's energy system will be more than $1 trillion. These costs include investments in power system upgrades and, above all, new generation to cope with the retirement of nuclear and coal-fired power plants, to meet growing demand from electric vehicles and heating systems, and to meet climate protection obligations.
The transition will require the installation of solar panels covering an area equivalent to 43 soccer fields and 1,600 heat pumps a day. Twenty-seven new onshore and four offshore wind farms per week must also be built, according to a wish list presented by Chancellor Olaf Scholz during a recent visit to the headquarters of Volkswagen AG in Wolfsburg.
About 250 gigawatts of new capacity should be installed by 2030, when electricity demand is expected to be about a third higher than now, according to estimates by Germany's grid regulator and the Agora Energiewende think tank.
This will involve renewables and gas-fired power plants, which could one day be converted to run on hydrogen.
The German government announced this week that bids will be prepared this year for gas-fired power plants, which will account for about a tenth of that capacity. As for the expansion of renewable energy sources, installing a single windmast could take up to seven years while Germany goes through all the bureaucratic procedures.
With nuclear power and coal not being considered, Germany has begun rapidly deploying terminals to import more expensive liquefied natural gas in an effort to power its industrialized economy. At the same time, electric cars, heat pumps and hydrogen electrolyzers will increase demand by 33 percent to about 750 terawatt hours by 2030, according to government estimates.
Germany also needs to decide how it will generate electricity when wind and solar are unavailable. So far, the government's plan includes preparing a fleet of new gas-fired power plants that could later run on hydrogen, but it is struggling to find investors willing to take on such costly projects.
