Berlin In order to secure the energy supply, Germany will have to import hydrogen in the long term, according to Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck (Greens). “If we don’t want to fill 5 or 10 percent of the country’s area with wind turbines – I think that’s absurd – we need hydrogen imports,” Habeck said at an event by Tagesspiegel, Zeit, Handelsblatt and Wirtschaftswoche on Wednesday.
Germany will no longer use fossil gas to generate energy forever, Habeck said. He referred to the so-called taxonomy of the EU – a kind of compass designed to guide investments in sustainable technologies. According to this, investments in new gas-fired power plants should be considered sustainable by 2030 if they replace dirtier power plants and are operated completely with more climate-friendly gases such as hydrogen by 2035. “We need gas for these 13 years,” Habeck said. The federal government sees gas as a bridge technology following the nuclear and coal phase-out on the way to a more climate-friendly energy generation.
After that, the Federal Republic will have to import part of the hydrogen, which is to partially replace gas in energy production, Habeck said. But that’s not a problem. “Why shouldn’t Germany trade with other countries also via energy?“ It is only important to obtain more energy from different sources than before. Germany is currently very dependent on Russian gas imports. A similar one-sided dependence should not arise with hydrogen, Habeck said. “Russia would of course be a welcome partner to supply us with hydrogen or renewable energy, but not the only country.“
According to Habeck, the extraction of fossil fuels in the countries of origin often takes place in monopolistic structures that are prone to corruption or abuse of power. A switch to the production of renewable energies might be an opportunity to promote changes here. In the future, hydrogen might possibly be imported from the Arab region, North African countries or other regions of the world. However, investment security requires the rule of law.
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Harsh criticism of France
Habeck also wants to reform the promotion of green electricity and also agree on repayments with investors in the event of high profits. In the future, he said, he wanted to make sure in general that there were no more overfunds. This applies, for example, to the renewable energy industry. “Deviating from the previous funding method, we will introduce exactly such contracts for differences, at least for large energy parks,” said Habeck.
The so-called contracts for difference stipulate that an industry is promoted to a certain extent, but if it works economically, subsidies flow back to the state. “This is what the market economy is talking regarding,” Habeck said of the plans, which he wants to present by the summer at the latest.
On the other hand, the minister criticized the energy policy of France with its focus on nuclear power as backward. “What France is doing at the moment is a very planned, capped energy supply for an old-fashioned industry,” the Green politician said at an economic conference in Berlin on Wednesday. France had to renovate its numerous old nuclear power plants with regarding two billion euros each per plant.
However, old milers are becoming more and more susceptible to malfunctions. Investments in new ones did not pay off either: “If you build new ones, it all takes four times longer and the costs are gigantic.” He is sure that nuclear energy will not be a competitive advantage for the neighbor. “We will meet in 2030,” he said, referring to France. Germany, on the other hand, relies on renewable energy: “It will be a locational advantage for the German economy to go this way.“
More: Freight forwarders warn of a wave of insolvency due to energy prices – and demand a rescue package from Habeck.
