FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Germany’s energy consumption in 2021 is likely to rise by nearly 3% and the country’s carbon dioxide emissions are set to increase by at least 4% as more coal is burnt, industry statistics group AGEB said on Tuesday.
The rise in energy demand is mainly due to a pickup in economic growth and cold weather at the start of the year, although higher prices of energy and carbon pollution allowances have tempered growth in demand, AGEB said.
AGEB monitors data on primary energy, which refers to raw energy sources such as fossil fuels and renewable power that have not been converted into other forms.
Slow wind speeds meant that more coal was burnt this year to offset shortfalls of renewable power in a pattern that is likely to drive carbon dioxide emissions up by at least 4% in the full year, vis-a-vis 2020, AGEB said.
Energy consumption in Germany rose 3.3% in January-September from a year earlier, AGEB said, as Europe’s biggest economy started to recover from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
During that period the economy used 298.9 million tonnes of coal equivalent, an industry standard measure, up from 289.3 million a year earlier.
Consumption of mineral oil products dropped by 7% because of a downturn in aviation and road traffic. Heating oil sales were off 38% as householders had stocked up well in 2020 and felt deterred by high prices.
Natural gas consumption increased by 8.5% in the nine months while the power sector saw higher output produced from coal and nuclear energy.
Figures are rounded and expressed in million tonnes of coal equivalent.*
ENERGY SOURCE Jan-Sep Jan-Se PCT CHANGE PCT SHARE OF
t, pt, YR/YR TOTAL IN
2020 2021 JAN-SEPT 2021
Oil 103.0 95.8 – 7.2 32.0
Natural gas 72.3 78.5 + 8.5 26.3
Hard coal 20.9 25.1 + 20.0 8.4
Lignite 21.8 27.3 + 25.6 9.1
Nuclear energy 17.8 19.2 + 8.2 6.4
Renewables 49.0 48.2 – 2.0 16.1
Foreign power – 1.3 – 1.2 … – 0.4
trade balance
Others 5.8 6.0 + 3.8 2.0
TOTAL 289.3 298.9 + 3.3 100
*One million tonnes coal equivalent unit equals 29.308 petajoules
(Reporting by Vera Eckert, editing by Susan Fenton)
