Natural resources
Germany’s energy turnaround
September 17, 2012
Challenging for municipalities and municipal utilities
Authors
Josef Auer
+49 69 910-31878 josef.auer@db.com Germany's energy turnaround targets objectives that far exceed its legislated, accelerated exit from nuclear power generation. In order for the many energy and climate policy objectives to be met at least EUR 30 bn will have to be invested in Germany annually in areas such as renewable energies, conventional power plant, grids, storage facilities, energy-efficient buildings and alternative propulsion technologies – no small challenge.
Eric Heymann
+49 69 910-31730 eric.heymann@db.com Editor
Antje Stobbe
Deutsche Bank AG
DB Research
Frankfurt am Main
Germany
E-mail: marketing.dbr@db.com
Fax: +49 69 910-31877 www.dbresearch.com DB Research Management
Ralf Hoffmann | Bernhard Speyer
The turnaround will pave the way for municipalities and municipal utilities to enter new spheres of activity in terms of energy provision, the heating market and the transport sector. Municipalities and municipal utilities will probably make their presence felt most heavily in the area of power supply; they have appropriate instruments for the heating segment, too. In the transport sector, by contrast, overarching levels of government are better placed to implement environmental policy measures for boosting energy efficiency.
Considering the immense investment required it becomes obvious that the municipalities' and utilities' budget constraints are the biggest bottlene ck for the regionally essential energy turnaround. This applies in particular to investments in projects that are not subsidised by higher levels of government and/or have long amortisation periods.
Therefore, when decisions are made on resource allocation the crucial issue should be which measures do the most to implement the revised energy policy as a whole. In this context it has