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Schaffen wir die Energiewende – und wird Strom billiger? | Harald Lesch | Terra X Lesch & Co

29 minutes 19 seconds

🇬🇧 English

S1

Speaker 1

00:00

How is the energy transition going? Since last year, we have had an energy crisis. The Russian natural gas is missing, the costs for energy are exploding, the

S2

Speaker 2

00:09

Federal Energy Agency is considering rationing the electricity for electric cars and heat pumps. And what happens with the so-called dark cloud, when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine? I always say that a successful energy transition would make energy cheaper.

S2

Speaker 2

00:25

Is that true at all? Actually, We are fed up with crises. But somehow we don't let them get us out of the embrace. Many years ago there was the financial crisis.

S2

Speaker 2

00:44

That was 2008. Then there was peace again.

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Speaker 3

00:47

But all the time the climate change, the climate crisis, the climate disaster was hovering in

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Speaker 2

00:53

the background. Then came Corona. Now the Ukraine disaster, the war in Ukraine.

S2

Speaker 2

00:59

So from the nice, quiet times, nothing is left. We are suddenly in a permanent crisis mode. And now also the energy crisis. It didn't get that bad.

S2

Speaker 2

01:11

Let's be honest. If you think about it, what was done to black painting last year, then the winter was pretty good. We saved a lot of energy, there were no blackouts. Everything that was done in apocalyptic prophecies, was not included.

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Speaker 2

01:31

Nevertheless, we are in a crisis. First, the CO2 emissions are rising and the Earth is warming. You can feel it at every corner of the globe. Second, we are dependent on the import of fossil fuels.

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Speaker 2

01:49

And still very, very strongly. To be precise, we cover over 2 thirds of our energy needs through imports. And then there are the high prices for energy. For the first time, I think, the German population realizes that the energy transition as a reaction to climate change, to global warming, is not just a theoretical thing that takes place somewhere in the world, or even here with us, does not affect us further, but it will cost us something.

S2

Speaker 2

02:20

In the truest sense of the word. The electricity prices for private households have increased by 61% in the last 10 years. But not evenly. So Let's look at the diagram.

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Speaker 2

02:32

The electricity price growth until 2023. You can see that there. In the last 10 years, the price has risen by 61%, but especially in the last 2 years, it has risen drastically. By

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Speaker 1

02:43

43%.

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Speaker 2

02:45

The prices for electricity generation have also increased by

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Speaker 1

02:49

236%.

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Speaker 2

02:51

So from 2014 to 2019, the electricity prices have been very stable for 5 years. That's wonderful, those were the good old days. And that the electricity prices have increased so much afterwards, has above all to do with the fact that the gas price has increased so much.

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Speaker 2

03:03

But in 2022, gas power plants only delivered around 9% of German electricity. Why should the gas price make electricity more expensive if the electricity generation in Germany depends on

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Speaker 1

03:14

90%

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Speaker 2

03:15

of other energy sources? In other words, why is the gas market so important for the electricity price? Why is it so and why is it so difficult to understand?

S2

Speaker 2

03:25

We'll get to that later. Now comes the introduction. I mean, it's great. The renewable energy covers about half of the electricity consumption.

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Speaker 2

03:35

Many people think, half? We already have half of the energy transition behind us. To be precise, almost half, i.e.

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Speaker 1

03:43

46%

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Speaker 2

03:44

of the German electricity consumption, was covered by renewable energies in

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Speaker 1

03:48

2022.

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Speaker 2

03:49

But the share of renewable energies is significantly reduced. If we look at the areas of heat, it's only 17 percent. And the area of transport, it's 7 percent.

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Speaker 2

04:01

So if you take the total energy consumption of Germany, the actual energy consumption, then the renewables only produce a fifth of the energy that we all use in Germany. So 4 fifths are still from non-renewable sources. So We haven't even really started with the energy transition. And for the climate protection goals, what we have done so far in the energy transition is still far too small.

S2

Speaker 2

04:26

I think the diagram over the development of greenhouse gas emissions shows quite clearly that we are still far below our capabilities. The challenge is to get out of nuclear power, out of coal, out of gas, out of renewable energy. Can we do that at all? There were always critical and quite justified comments about the energy transition, about the videos we made about e-fuels, e-cars, heat pumps, etc.

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Speaker 2

04:54

And this can be divided into 3 categories. Do we have enough electricity? Where does the electricity come from

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Speaker 3

05:00

in the

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Speaker 2

05:00

case of dark clouds, i.e. When the sun does not shine and when the wind does not blow? And can our networks carry the electricity at all?

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Speaker 2

05:07

These are the big challenges of the energy transition and we will look at them 1 by 1.

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Speaker 4

05:12

We can always

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Speaker 2

05:13

go through this in a mantra-like way, So that it is clear what it is about. We want to reduce greenhouse gases. To do this, we have to expand the renewable energy.

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Speaker 2

05:22

That means we want to get out of everything where we still use fossil resources today. Especially heat, industry and transport. All right? Sure.

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Speaker 2

05:31

For example, we pump heat from electric cars. That means we need more electric energy. Specifically, 750 terawatt hours

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Speaker 4

05:39

would be needed, 230. Clear? Clear.

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Speaker 3

05:39

For example, we need more electric energy for the transport of electric cars. Specifically, we

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Speaker 2

05:39

need 750 terawatt hours instead of 230. The demand is increasing because electricity will be used much more in the future than is the case today. That's a lot of electricity.

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Speaker 2

05:53

And the share of renewable energy consumption at the gross electricity consumption should, according to the federal government, increase by at least

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Speaker 1

05:59

80%.

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Speaker 2

06:01

We now have 2023, just as a little reminder. Until 2030, that's 7 years. How do we do that?

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Speaker 2

06:09

Let's look at the diagram, which concerns the expansion of wind and photovoltaics. So, if it really is about how we get ahead in the energy transition? And it is already significant that both in photovoltaics and in wind power there were obviously phases in which the expansion has increased. So more and more photovoltaic systems have been installed, more and more wind power systems.

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Speaker 2

06:31

And then suddenly it went back completely. The lower 1 is the photovoltaic expansion. Look at that. From 2012 to

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Speaker 1

06:39

2013.

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Speaker 2

06:42

Boom! As if you had stopped building photovoltaics in Germany. With wind energy, it's a bit later. It's the transition from 2017 down to

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Speaker 1

06:54

2018, 2019.

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Speaker 2

06:56

You can see here that we haven't continued consistently at all. You can see that in both photovoltaics and wind power. But we can't afford that in the future.

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Speaker 2

07:08

The future will look like we have to constantly expand. More and more and

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Speaker 4

07:12

more. By

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Speaker 1

07:12

2030

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Speaker 2

07:14

we will have tons of roofs in Germany with photovoltaics and also surface photovoltaics.

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Speaker 4

07:21

And above

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Speaker 2

07:21

all we will expand wind power. According to the Federal Government, the renewables must be expanded at 3 times the speed. It all has to go much faster.

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Speaker 2

07:31

If you look at it, offshore, 30 gigawatts in the North Sea should be expanded by

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Speaker 1

07:35

2030.

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Speaker 2

07:36

With the Wind-on-Land-Law, the countries must in the future issue 2% of their land area for wind power. Planning and approval procedures are accelerated for the expansion of wind, solar parks, etc. You can see that this is an enormous challenge.

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Speaker 2

07:47

This must be planned, approved and it must be built. There must be someone who builds the things. For this, it does not only need a social acceptance, it also needs enough craftsmen and craftswomen who can do this. We urgently need many more professionals who are able to install photovoltaic systems on roofs, build wind turbines, and make power grids.

S2

Speaker 2

08:13

Technically, all of this is possible. What this is about is political will, social will, and the right staff. We need enough people to do this. These are all conditions that we can meet well in Germany.

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Speaker 2

08:28

If we want to. The potential of wind power and solar energy is not yet exhausted. Purely technically. But now we assume, we actually manage to take the curve in this diagram as it was shown.

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Speaker 2

08:42

So we reach our expansion goals in photovoltaics, in wind power, onshore and offshore. What happens now when the sun does not shine and the wind does not blow? What happens with the so-called dark cloud?

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Speaker 4

08:59

What is

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Speaker 2

08:59

going on with The energy transition is a completely new situation, which for many consumers in this country seems almost threatening. Namely, that our energy sources are fluctuating. In other words, at night it is dark, at night photovoltaic systems cannot contribute to the electrical power supply in Germany.

S2

Speaker 2

09:24

What about the wind? The wind does not always blow. That is the point. We have seasonal fluctuations and the fluctuations during the day.

S2

Speaker 2

09:32

We all know the day, at night it's dark, during the day it's bright. We also have seasonal fluctuations, for example photovoltaics is in the summer, well, we don't need a physics degree for that, that the photovoltaics in the summer is of course incredibly efficient. That means a lot of energy is basically storable if it somehow succeeds to store it in such a way that it can be distributed nicely. In winter, the wind power is stronger.

S2

Speaker 2

09:56

That means it's not that bad. Now we just have to distribute it in such a way that we have a basic load capacity again, i.e. A stable energy supply. And for that it is necessary that there are storages.

S2

Speaker 2

10:09

The energy that we do not use, that is often the case. There are days in Germany where we have so much energy that we can almost give it away. Which we do in fact. Or sometimes we even have to stop the plants, because we don't know where to go with all the electric energy that is provided to us by nature.

S2

Speaker 2

10:28

That we store it in storage media and then use it when we need it. That's the point. So let's take a look at what possibilities there are. Currently, it is the reserve power plants that ensure that enough electric energy is offered in the event of dark clouds.

S2

Speaker 2

10:44

These are currently coal and gas power plants because they are flexible, usable and, above all, fast to switch on and off. Nuclear power plants would not be suitable for this. In the future, hydrogen should even be used. However, this will only be the case if we actually manage to produce hydrogen from renewable energies.

S2

Speaker 2

11:02

Otherwise, it would be nonsense to produce hydrogen with fossil resources to burn it. Then of course it's about the question of energy storage. How large is the energy storage demand that we have? Energy storage is measured in the amount of energy that can be stored.

S2

Speaker 2

11:21

In plain language, there is the unit of gigawatt hours. To estimate this, a gigawatt hour is a pretty large amount of energy. For example, in Germany, in 2022, all solar plants have provided 60 gigawatt hours of energy, according to the Institute for Solar Energy, the Fraunhofer Institute. So now you can ask yourself what amounts of energy must be stored.

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Speaker 2

11:46

It depends a little on how much the wind power contributes to it and how much the photovoltaics

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Speaker 4

11:52

contributes to it. How much energy does it need to be stored? It depends on how much

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Speaker 2

11:52

wind power and photovoltaic power are added. If we focus more on photovoltaic power in the future, because for whatever reason no wind turbines are built, we need more storage capacity than if we had a mixture of wind power and photovoltaics. At present, we have a storage capacity of 40 gigawatt hours, especially via pump storage in Germany.

S2

Speaker 2

12:13

Pump storage is clear. With the excess energy, you pump water up. It then falls back down over the turbine. With a very high efficiency, the electricity can be generated again.

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Speaker 2

12:24

It's a great thing, but in Germany, with 40 gigawatt hours, it's almost exhausted. In the future, power to gas will play an important role, where you can convert the excess electric energy into gas. The regrettable thing is that the efficiency of power to gas is not that high, but if we had enough power that we would have to store, enough electric power that we would have to store, or electric energy, to be more precise, that we would want to store, then that would certainly be a means of choice, especially if it's about storing energy in the long term. The classic energy storage we all know is the battery.

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Speaker 2

12:59

And currently, there are about 1.2 gigawatt hours of battery storage. That's what they can store. At least we have 5.5 gigawatt hours of home storage. But here's the thing.

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Speaker 2

13:10

According to the study by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy, we need up to 100 gigawatt hours of battery storage by

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Speaker 1

13:18

2030.

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Speaker 2

13:20

There's still plenty of room for improvement. You can really go for it. The problem with battery storage is that they are too expensive.

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Speaker 2

13:28

They are important to balance load peaks. When a lot of energy is needed, the batteries are fast and really important. What is also added is a perspective. If we actually had an energy transition in the transport sector in Germany and we really would be able to get many millions of electric e-cars would drive on German roads, so really get away from the combustion engine to the e-cars, then we would have a new storage possibility, which offers quite large perspectives.

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Speaker 2

14:02

So With a number of 15 million vehicles in Germany, you would have a potential energy storage capacity of

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Speaker 1

14:11

750

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Speaker 2

14:13

gigawatt hours. That would be a blast. Well, de facto is of course much less and you also need this technology of bidirectional charging and discharging.

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Speaker 2

14:21

But if that were the case, then the electric cars could significantly mitigate this problem of energy storage. The energy transition does not only involve technical solutions, such as balancing the fluctuations of solar energy or wind power, but also how energy is distributed and how energy is used. It is also about the role of the consumer in how to use the energy that is offered. Ultimately, it's about the flexibility of the consumer side, how the offered energy quantities can be used.

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Speaker 2

14:56

This is a very big challenge and has something to do with how the energy quantities that are produced in 1 corner of Germany, namely in the north, where the many wind turbines are located, to get to where the energy is consumed, among other things in the south. In other words, somehow the networks have to be expanded. The networks we have today are not enough to make this new energy landscape possible. The network expansion is 1 of the bottlenecks in the energy transition.

S2

Speaker 2

15:31

We have done far too little. The Federal Network Agency always points out that the expansion of the networks is a condition sine qua non, a condition without which the energy transition will not work. Flexibility of consumers, especially the large consumer, will be important, so that they consume energy when it is offered, when nature offers it. And on the other hand, the energy must also be distributed in Germany, which is still a major infrastructure measure.

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Speaker 2

16:00

And there are still apparently major obstacles, both in the political area and in the socio-political areas, that are repeatedly prevented from carrying out these great new infrastructure measures. There is a research project called Long-Term Scenarios, And this shows, for example, that the actual demand for grid expansion is even greater than the measures planned so far. So we are actually still below what is necessary. And then, of course, the question arises, can the many new electric cars and heat pumps actually be supplied reliably with electricity?

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Speaker 2

16:34

And now it's getting really interesting. Because this is a very emotional, important moment when the word rationing appears in the press. What could happen there? So what would be the worst case scenario that 1 could think about?

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Speaker 2

16:48

A classic would be a cold winter evening, the heat pumps are running and many people are letting their electric cars charge. How do we deal with that? We asked the Federal Network Agency. For me, the agency in terms of energy supply.

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Speaker 5

17:01

Where the network expansion has not or has not taken place sufficiently, we have to make precautions so that the grid does not go down in this situation. Therefore, we are currently discussing whether the grid operators may dim the power supply in the event of a subsequent emergency, it is important to dim the power supply so that the network remains in line with the requirements and the consumers pay a lower net cost for this system. A lower net final cost for these systems.

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Speaker 5

17:35

It is important that it always stays warm, because heat pumps can handle such restrictions. They do not have to have a constant current connection. And the electric car will also continue to charge, maybe less quickly, but dimming does not mean switching off. Nobody is switched off.

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Speaker 2

17:58

Nobody is switched off. That's a statement from Mr. Wulf.

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Speaker 2

18:02

But we as consumers can do something. We can actually introduce a new kind of energy management in our private households to use energy in this way, when it is available, possibly even cheaper, and then reduce our energy hunger if it could get a little more difficult. And probably without our quality of life being affected. The digitization of the energy revolution is an important component when it comes to how the consumption behavior can be controlled in the future.

S2

Speaker 2

18:33

The smart grids, the networking of devices in private households, but also in economic context, will play an important role. Of course, flexible electricity tariffs are also needed. So we see a lot is happening in the energy transition. We have the most important technologies or are currently developing them.

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Speaker 2

18:51

But we are far too slow in everything. We actually need a sprint in the energy transition. But what about the prices? Will the electricity prices really drop?

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Speaker 2

19:02

Now a section will be in the video, I give up. I only read about it, because that's a department where I, as a consumer, am honestly completely helpless. Why is electricity so expensive at the moment? Electricity is traded in the European electricity market, on the stock exchange.

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Speaker 2

19:17

Suppliers buy the electricity some time in advance, we can understand that too, advance and calculate the consumer prices. And these prices are usually fixed for a whole year. So if something happens within this year, that the electricity prices go up, the electricity providers have a problem. Because they have bought for a longer period of time.

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Speaker 2

19:37

I'm curious. More than half of the electricity price is net expenses. And there are of course big regional differences, taxes and deductions. And now it comes.

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Speaker 2

19:45

Why are the electricity prices so exploded in 2022? The Federal Network Agency writes in its monitoring report, The prices in the electricity retail market follow with this development very largely the price development in natural gas. Because in the German electricity retail market, natural gas power plants are the most expensive in most hours. Clamp on, Merit Order principle.

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Speaker 2

20:09

Clamp on. The situation was further intensified in the middle of the year by the extremely low water levels of the Rhine and the increased supply of the south German coal power plants. Keyword climate change.

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Speaker 4

20:23

When it

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Speaker 2

20:24

comes to droughts in summer, the rivers are empty. Married order. And that's the point.

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Speaker 2

20:30

I just said it again, I didn't understand it. Is the designation for the rising sorted limit cost curve of electricity generation for thermal generators. Attention! The electricity price on the stock exchange fluctuates quite a lot every day.

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Speaker 2

20:44

And depending on demand, generators are driven up or down. Depending on how much renewable energy is available, or whether the sun is strong or not, or whether the wind is strong or not, and so on. So there is a strong fluctuation. Always with the condition, here it comes, that the demand can be covered.

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Speaker 2

21:04

So at the very back, it is always determined, the demand must always be satisfied. Always. A gas power plant only remains on the grid and thus also secures the demand, if it can cover its high costs and thus set the electricity price as long as it cannot be replaced by cheaper generators. That is the reason why the 1 with the highest electricity price practically defines the electricity price.

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Speaker 2

21:33

A gas power plant only remains operational if it is profitable. Otherwise, the electricity price would have to rise so long to meet the demand until the gas power plant is back on the grid. This is the merit-order principle. The coupling of gas and electricity prices can also be seen in the following graph.

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Speaker 2

21:50

We see how the gas power plants' limit costs determine how high the electricity price is. And how the gas price fluctuates is the price we see later on in the electricity price. That means the electricity price follows the gas price directly. Professor Claudia Kempfert from the German Institute for Economic Research is an energy economist and expert on the energy market.

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Speaker 2

22:10

And she has a very clear judgment.

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Speaker 6

22:13

At the moment, the electricity prices are only so high because we are paying the price of the sluggish energy transition and the fossil fuels drive the electricity price up. If we didn't have so much gas and coal in the system, the electricity price wouldn't explode so much. And that's why you have to see that the more we change that, the more the electricity can become significantly cheaper.

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Speaker 6

22:33

It has to be, especially because we want to use it for electromobility or in the building sector.

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Speaker 2

22:40

To reduce the financial burden caused by high energy costs, the Federal Government introduced price cuts in

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Speaker 1

22:47

2022.

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Speaker 2

22:49

Professor Claudia Kempfert sees the coverage of energy prices as being critical.

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Speaker 6

22:53

In order to support households, 1 should pay partial amounts, especially to income-weak households, so that they can pay their energy costs. Fossil prices should also speak the truth of the price. They will even increase it further by CO2 pricing, so that on the 1 hand you relieve stress by paying directly, so that you let the fossil prices speak the truth, but then the energy transition is implemented accordingly, so that the costs go back, because the costs are currently only high because of fossil fuels.

S2

Speaker 2

23:26

The good news is that energy prices are slowly falling again, both on the electricity market and slowly for consumers. Why is that?

S5

Speaker 5

23:33

The reason for the overall price level being a bit lower is, on the 1 hand, the fact that the French nuclear power plants are much more on the network, and Secondly, the relatively stable gas supply that we have seen over the winter. We are not over the mountain and the gas crisis is not over. That is very important.

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Speaker 5

23:58

But at the moment the situation has relaxed a bit.

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Speaker 2

24:02

So it's the gas market again that determines the electricity price. Most of the experts we've spoken to are convinced that gas will remain an expensive energy source in the long term. Nobody knows how the electricity prices will develop in the long term.

S2

Speaker 2

24:16

There are far too many factors that could influence this. But 1 thing is certain. With wind and sun, electric power can be generated cheaply. Here we have a graph where the electricity cost of different energy sources according to a study by the Fraunhofer ISE, published in

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Speaker 1

24:36

2021.

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Speaker 2

24:37

This shows how renewable energies are often much cheaper than conventional energy sources.

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Speaker 6

24:44

At the moment, if you see contracts where it will be possible to buy electricity from the neighborhood, where there is a lot of renewable energy, then the electricity price will drop for the regions where it is produced. In some regions, villages or cities, renewable energy is already being used 100% and they often profit from very low electricity prices and are not affected at all by how high fossil energy prices are. And that's where it should go in the future, so that the electricity price can drop.

S2

Speaker 2

25:20

And despite the Merit-Order-Principle, there is a correlation. The more electricity generation from wind and sun is offered, the lower the electricity prices on the electricity market. There is an interesting estimate as far as the development of electricity prices is concerned.

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Speaker 2

25:35

An estimate by the International Energy Agency, which says that between 2021 and

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Speaker 1

25:41

2023,

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Speaker 2

25:44

Europe alone has saved

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Speaker 1

25:49

100

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Speaker 2

25:50

billion euros in energy costs were saved. The use of renewable energies led to prices on the European power market that were 100 billion lower than if this expansion had not taken place. This is a pretty strong argument for the fact that we can expect that in the future, the more renewable energies are used, the higher the electricity price will be.

S2

Speaker 2

26:15

Forecasts are uncertain, especially when they concern the future. The same is true of the electricity price. In recent years, we have seen that there are influences on the electricity price. No 1 expected that.

S2

Speaker 2

26:26

But 1 thing is clear. The more renewable energy we build up, the cheaper the electricity is to generate. This should also affect the electricity prices. The energy transition is the consequence of a very long period of carefree.

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Speaker 2

26:44

We just pretended to be able to use nature as we wanted and now realize that the climate is changing so rapidly and radically that we urgently need to react. The global warming with all its consequences forces us to question our energy consumption critically. And above all to ask where all the energy we consume comes from. And this critical questioning drives us into the energy transition, namely into the renewable energies.

S2

Speaker 2

27:12

Energies that have always been available. So above all solar energy and, derived from it, wind energy, because it is nothing more than converted solar energy. These are the renewable energies, and with them a complete change of our energy network is connected. We need different systems, We need a different distribution, we need a different energy use, we need a storage of energy, in order to be able to distribute our energy use over day and night, to ensure that we have a supply security.

S2

Speaker 2

27:43

That sounds a bit like the conversion of a sailing ship on the high seas at wind speed

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Speaker 1

27:47

12

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Speaker 2

27:48

into an electrically operated ship of the 21st century. But nobody should fall off the ship. We also have to make sure that the costs are such that everyone can do it.

S2

Speaker 2

28:01

This is a big question in such social transformations, when they are driven by technology. How can society go along with this? How can the energy transition be accepted, not only accepted, but even loved? How can we make the young generations see their calling in making this energy transition successful?

S2

Speaker 2

28:21

That means we have a huge interdisciplinary field of challenges, which are not only technological, but also sociological. How can we bring the population together to participate in this energy revolution, to participate, possibly even to be there with new ideas? How can we shape this economically correctly? Because the economy is 1 of the drivers, also of society in Germany and in Europe.

S2

Speaker 2

28:44

And how do we manage to get it done so quickly that the climate is actually protected? So that it does not change so quickly that we may have to spend much more on climate adaptation than on changing our energy system. Because if we spend it there, we can't spend it there. It's actually the big question, are we fast enough?

S2

Speaker 2

29:06

And this video is supposed to contribute a little to that, to spur us on, because we can do it. We just have to do it. Fast. Now.

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Speaker 2

29:16

And if not us, who else?