The demand for electricity and natural gas has increased significantly this year.

During the corona pandemic, consumption fell significantly and, according to new calculations, will now again exceed the previous year's figure.

According to an evaluation by the Federal Association of Energy and Water Management (BDEW), which will be published this week and which the FAZ has received in advance, gross electricity consumption from January to September was 416 billion kilowatt hours.

Jan Hauser

Editor in business.

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As a result, the energy association expects a consumption of 561 billion kilowatt hours of electricity this year, an increase of 3 percent compared to the previous year. This is mainly due to the economic recovery. The cutback in industrial production and public restrictions had caused gross electricity consumption to drop to 544 billion kilowatt hours in 2020. However, the expected consumption this year is still slightly below the level of the pre-Corona year 2019 of 568 billion kilowatt hours.

Natural gas has caught up more: According to BDEW, 708 billion kilowatt hours were consumed from January to September.

According to the forecast, it will be 1013 billion kilowatt hours this year - 5 percent more than in the previous year (965 billion kilowatt hours) and 2 percent more than in the pre-Corona year 2019 (989 billion kilowatt hours).

The share of renewables is to increase to 70 percent by 2030

For the climate protection goals, the energy association expects around 15 million electric vehicles, 15 gigawatts of electrolysis capacity for the production of hydrogen and several million heat pumps in Germany by 2030. This means that electrification will increase significantly. However, according to Kerstin Andreae, chairwoman of the BDEW management board, climate neutrality in 2045 requires a significant expansion of renewable energies. "We need an unprecedented photovoltaic boom and we must finally remove the obstacles to the expansion of wind energy," she said. A renewable share of 70 percent will be necessary by 2030. The expansion and renovation of the energy networks will also be more urgent than already with higher climate targets.With more renewable energies such as wind turbines and solar systems as well as increasing electrification, the consumption of fossil fuels such as gasoline, diesel, heating oil and coal should decrease and with it their greenhouse gas emissions.

As a reason for the higher electricity consumption this year, Andreae cites the economic recovery and the associated increased consumption in industry as well as the fact that cool temperatures in spring have extended the heating period into May. "Due to the weather-related lower feed-in of renewable energies, especially in the first half of the year, gas was also increasingly used to generate electricity," she said.

The Arbeitsgemeinschaft Energiebilanzen, an amalgamation of several energy associations, expects energy consumption in Germany to rise by 3 percent this year.

The higher energy prices and the higher costs of certificates for emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) would further dampen consumption.

According to the evaluation, the consumption of petrol fell by 1.1 percent and that of diesel fuel by 3.7 percent in the first nine months.

Sales of light heating oil fell by 38 percent, as in the previous year many consumers had refilled their tanks at low prices.

BDEW assumes that electricity consumption will continue to rise

For the year as a whole, the AG Energiebilanzen expects that energy-related CO2 emissions will rise by around 4 percent. In addition to the cool weather and the economic upswing, this is also due to the slightly lower share of renewable energies in total consumption. In power generation, the reduced wind power generation was mainly offset by hard coal and lignite power plants.

According to industry expectations, electricity consumption will increase even more than before.

The BDEW expects that by 2030 around 700 billion kilowatt hours of electricity will be required in order to achieve the climate targets.

That would be 25 percent more than this year.

"In order to replace fossil fuels, there will in future be much more demand for green electricity in the areas of transport, heating and industry," said Andreae.

Increasing digitization will further increase consumption.