Renewables still in the minority: one third of Germany's electricity comes from coal

In about 20 years, Germany wants to be climate-neutral – but currently a significant part of the electricity is still generated with fossil fuels. Coal plays the most important role, but renewables are slowly catching up.

Coal is still Germany’s most important source of energy for electricity production – but the share of renewable energies has recently increased. According to calculations by the Federal Statistical Office, more than half (52.9 percent) of the total amount of electricity generated, 143.8 billion kilowatt hours, came from conventional energy sources such as coal, natural gas and nuclear power in the first quarter of 2022. According to the Wiesbaden authority, renewable energies such as wind power, photovoltaics and biogas contributed 47.1 percent.

While the amount of electricity fed in from conventional sources fell by 8 percent compared to the same period last year, there was an increase of 21 percent in the case of renewable energy sources. The most important electricity supplier in the first three months of the current year was coal with a 31.5 percent share of the total amount of electricity. The amount of coal-fired power in German grids increased by 12.5 percent compared to the same quarter of the previous year.

Wind power, the second most important source of energy, contributed 30.1 percent to electricity generation in Germany in the first quarter. The fact that the amount of wind power increased by 28.8 percent within a year is mainly due to the fact that the first quarter of 2021 was relatively windless, the statisticians explained. The amounts of electricity generated using natural gas (minus 17 percent) and nuclear energy (minus 49 percent) have fallen significantly. As a result of the nuclear phase-out, nuclear energy only accounts for 6 percent of the total amount of electricity fed into the grid, natural gas 13 percent.

By 2030, a total of 80 percent of German electricity consumption is to be covered by renewable energies. By 2035 it should be almost 100 percent. Germany wants to become climate neutral by 2045.