The conversion of electricity generation to renewable energies such as wind and solar is the most important building block for a climate-neutral economy and Germany's independence from energy imports. The energy crisis in the wake of the war in Ukraine shows that an acceleration of the energy transition is urgently needed. "Contracts for Differences" (CfDs) can be an effective means of promoting the ...
Die EU-Richtlinie über die Gesamtenergieeffizienz von Gebäuden (EPBD) etabliert eine neue gesellschaftliche Norm und ein großes politisches Ziel: Bis 2033 sollten alle Wohngebäude einen Mindeststandard an Energieeffizienz erreichen. So sollen Energiekosten und Schocks für Haushalte begrenzt werden und der Energiebedarf reduziert werden, um eine klimaneutrale Energieversorgung für alle zu...
The energy and climate crisis enhance the need for energy savings. In the building sector, these savings can be achieved primarily through thermal retrofitting. So far, progress in this area has been slow. To date, less than one percent of the residential building stock in Germany is retrofitted each year. The existing support programs alone offer too little reliability for the necessary...
The influential Indian Parliamentarian Mr. Jayant Sinha envisages a global climate alliance building on the concept of the European Union and its Green Deal – a community attractive to its members because it addresses the diverse needs and ensures that joint action benefits all. To ensure the inclusive nature and broaden the political ownership of such an initiative, Mr. Sinha launched a report on...
According to the latest review report of the Council of Experts on Climate Change, the German building sector failed to meet its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets in 2022. This is in part because investments in energy-efficient building refurbishment—supported by all kinds of policy measures— has neither been low nor shown a consistently positive trend over the past ten years. Furthermore, ...
We analyse the impact of the temporary tax reduction on diesel and gasoline prices from June to the end of August 2022 in Germany. By implementing a synthetic difference-in-differences approach with different baskets of European countries, we find a significant reduction in prices by 33.8–34.4 cents per litre for gasoline and 12.2–14.6 cents per litre for diesel. These results are robust to variations ...
To limit the effects of climate change, we must significantly curtail the trading and use of coal as an energy source. Although the rise of renewable energy sources has already led to a reduction in the demand for and use of coal, new export-oriented coal mine projects are still being approved, and they often receive strong political support. However, whether these projects are economically viable ...
Predicting future costs of technologies not yet developed is a complex exercise that includes many uncertain parameters and functional forms. In that context, small modular reactor (SMR) concepts that are in a rather early development stage claim to have cost advantages through learning effects, standardized design, modularization, co-siting economies, and other factors, such as better time-to-market ...