German coal use plunges nearly 40 per cent in 2024, despite nuclear exit

Germany’s coal consumption continued its downward trend in 2024, helping to reduce the country’s climate-damaging CO2 emissions, said energy market research group AG Energiebilanzen (AGEB) based on preliminary data.

In the first nine months of 2024, the consumption of hard coal in power plants to generate electricity fell by 39 per cent compared to the same period the previous year.

This was a result of an overall decrease in electricity generation, an increase in electricity production from renewables and increased electricity purchasing from neighbouring countries. The consumption of lignite fell by 14.5 percent.

The drop in coal use saved 20 million tonnes of CO2 in the first three quarters of 2024, a decline of 4.5 percent compared to the same period last year. AGEB expects a decline of 3.3 percent for energy-related CO2 emissions over the whole year.

Overall energy use also continued to fall and is set to reach a new annual record-low since Germany’s reunification in 1990, AGEB said based on projections for the remainder of the year. The researchers expect consumption to drop to 10,453 petajoules (PJ), down 1.7 percent compared with last year.

A key driver of falling energy use is Germany’s stagnating economy. “Significant declines in production in the manufacturing and processing industries could not be offset by the recent rise in energy demand in the particularly energy-intensive industrial sectors,” said AGEB.

In addition, the switch to renewables in electricity production meant that less energy is wasted, for example as heat in fossil power plants.

Germany continues to be among the European countries with the highest greenhouse gas emissions intensity of electricity generation, in large part due to its relatively high coal consumption.

However, the share of coal in electricity generation of Europe’s biggest economy more than halved since 1990 to about 25 per cent in 2023, while renewables now supply more than half of the country’s electricity. Nuclear energy was phased out last year.

The country has legislated to phase out coal entirely by 2038 at the latest, but high CO2 prices in the European Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) could spell the fuel’s end some years earlier.

For total energy use, Germany still depends to a large extent on fossil fuels, as oil dominates as a transport fuel and a lot of fossil gas is used for heating and in industry.

Originally published on Clean Energy Wire. Reproduced with permission.