Germany’s federal government should introduce a comprehensive energy transition law and set a carbon price in order to avoid failure of its energy transition, the country’s Federal Court of Auditors has said in a report to the parliament.
“The enormous expenses and the burden on citizens and the economy are in blatant disproportion to the so far poor yield of the energy transition,” said agency head Kay Scheller.
The country spent €34bn for energy transition related measures in 2017 and €160bn in the past five years but “is set to miss almost all targets to 2020”, the auditors said.
The country is in particular likely to miss targets for renewables use in the heating and transport sectors. This is partly due to “insufficient” coordination and controlling by the federal energy ministry, the auditors added.
According to the court, data relevant for the controlling of the energy transition “were not or insufficiently gathered”.
It recommended the government should provide more transparency with regard to the costs of the energy transition.
It should also simplify the regulatory framework of the energy transition as amendments the country’s 26 laws and 33 regulations dealing with energy proved to be too complex, it added.