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To date, the country's CHP plants obtained funding support for cogeneration involving a capacity of up to 50 kilowatt(kw) and a time period of ten years. Credit: Courtesy of Christian Schröder

Summary

Germany has been undertaking measures to decarbonise its economy to deal with climate change. For this reason, the government has come up with a number of regulations and incentives to provide support for alternative and more efficient energy sources. The Renewable Energy Sources Act, enacted in 2000, guarantees payment for renewable power fed into the public grid, and is the most successful instrument for boosting the growth of renewables in Germany. With these measures in place, the government intends to widen its range of fuels utilised for electricity generation by 2020. The German government also targets to cut the country’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 40% and up to 95%, upon 1990 levels, by 2020 and 2050 respectively. It is expected that even firmer policies will be implemented in the future.

The country’s highly efficient cogeneration has been provided support through the Combined Heat and Power (CHP) act. The existing cogeneration act that was passed in 2012 (Kraft-Wärme-Kopplungsgesetz (KWKG 2012)) was superseded on January 1, 2016 by the new CHP Act (KWKG 2016). The new CHP Act focuses on boosting highly efficient CHP plants in Germany. The owners of CHP systems obtain bonuses for the electricity generated via their cogeneration plants. Through this act, the government aims to enhance future prospects for the growth as well as development of cogeneration systems. The new CHP Act aims sets the target for electricity generation from CHP plants at 110 terawatt hours (TWh) per year by 2020 and 120TWh per year by 2025. This is lower than the previous CHP expansion target, which was 145TWh–150TWh annually (with an objective to attain 25% of CHP share in the total electricity production), in 2020.

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