A high-level government climate change meeting today in Berlin, where climate change protests are also currently taking place, has resulted in increased capacity goals for offshore wind in the country.
The government’s broad commitment is to green light the target of 65% of electricity to be generated from clean power by 2030.
However, ahead of the meeting, proposals in a paper setting out the coalition CDU’s plans, while renewable-positive, were seen as not strong enough for some in the industry.
“Much of the regulatory suggestions by the CDU are small scale and not far-reaching enough, and they also want to work with several financial incentives around heating, e-mobility etc. But incentives, the past has shown, are not the most effective political instrument to achieve targets,” said Bundesverband Windenergie (BWE).
It said the government needs to talk about the extension of renewables and the electrification of other sectors.
“The government needs to explain how we are to build up new capacity in renewables”, said BWE. “The big question is: what is the target for electricity for 2030?”
Political fear of losing voters in coal strongholds in east Germany are viewed by the sector as a key driver to tardy policy decision making on renewable energy.
However, BWE said jobs are in the process of being transferred in those regions.
“In some of those areas they have a lot of landmass and are looking into building windmills and also developing the technology and plants to produce hydrogen,” it said.
However, Germany’s largest worker union, IG Metall, is pessimistic. Job losses in the sector have been ongoing for months, and are expected to continue for the foreseeable future, it said.
“We need a much more ambitious build-up of green energy, especially wind energy, and we lack an industrial policy which focuses on employment in the green energy sector,” said a union spokesperson.
Responding to the hope of new jobs when new capacity is announced, the union replied: “We hope the sector will pick up over the years, but we are not sure. We have lost so many workers and know-how in this sector to date.”