Not everything that glitters is gold – sometimes it’s silver. And these days, there’s an extremely exciting silver anniversary to celebrate. Twenty-five years ago, on April 1, 2000, Germany’s Renewable Energy Sources Act (EEG) came into force. With its core elements – priority for renewables and a guaranteed feed-in tariff – the law marked the breakthrough for electricity generation from renewable sources. In the field of photovoltaics, it triggered an outright boom in Germany – one that, unfortunately, was abruptly stifled in 2013 by the federal government at the time, driven by short-sighted motives. A needless fate, by the way, that just a few years later also befell Germany’s wind energy sector.
Yet, from a global perspective, the EEG served as a catalyst for a movement that continues to this day. It was and remains a crucial driver of the global energy transition. In 2020, on the EEG’s 20th anniversary, BEE President Simone Peter stated that our law had been replicated in around 100 countries worldwide. Hans-Josef Fell (Alliance 90/The Greens), one of the architects of the EEG alongside the late Hermann Scheer (SPD), to whom we owe great gratitude, emphasized that China adopted the EEG’s core principles in 2008 for wind energy and in 2010 for solar energy. The resulting developments are well known.
To this day, the EEG continues to bear fruit – particularly through economies of scale driven by the boom. According to an analysis by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems (ISE), the current levelized cost of electricity for ground-mounted photovoltaic systems in Germany ranges between 4.1 and 6.9 cents per kilowatt-hour – unmatched by any other energy source. Renewables are on the rise worldwide. In Germany, their share of total electricity generation reached 59% last year. Green electricity is no longer the exception; it’s the norm. The vision of a climate-neutral energy system is becoming more and more of a reality each day.
How we continue on this path together and shape the global energy transition is the overarching question every year when thinkers, innovators and decision-makers from the industry gather at The smarter E Europe. With its four trade fairs, they showcase the most innovative products, applications and solutions while collaborating to develop new ideas and identify future opportunities. I’m already looking forward to May – we’ll see each other in Munich!