Germany has formally approved the Climate Protection Act 2030, also referred to by some media platforms as Climate Package or Climate Action Programme 2030, by publishing it in the country's official gazette. Now, Europe's largest economy is officially on path to become a climate neutral country by 2050. As announced earlier, Germany will now be chasing a renewable energy target of 65% in its entire energy supply to be achieved by 2030 and under this the 52 GW cap on subsidies for solar PV installations has been lifted.
The government has approved the highest target among all renewables for solar aiming for 98 GW installed capacity for PV technology under the act with 90 TWh of power generation, while the target for wind power capacity is now between 67 GW to 71 GW with wind power generation aim being 140 TWh to 145 TWh by the target year of 2030. By the end of October 2019, Germany had installed over 49.27 GW of solar power capacity cumulatively (see Germany Installed 377.6 MW Solar In Oct 2019).
The agreement comes into effect in 2019, says the Climate Protection Act 2030 to implement the Climate Protection Plan 2050, as published by the Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) on its website.
Preliminary data released by the Federal Association of Energy and Water Management (BDEW), Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Wurttemberg (ZSW) shows renewable energy share in the country's total electricity generation in 2019 was around 40%. Or from another angle, the share of renewable energy in Germany's total electricity consumption till 2019 reached close to 43% in 2019, increasing from 36.3% in 2017 and 38.2% in 2018. Solar PV accounted for 8% of this renewables share.
The solar industry, in the meanwhile, continues to lobby for the benefits the technology is likely to bring in for the country. A December 2019 report titled The Energy Transition in the Conext of the Nuclear and Coal Phaseout—Perspectives in the Electricity Market to 2040, by marketing research company EuPD Research claims by the year 2030, Germany will be able to create more than 50,000 new jobs in the country as solar PV and energy storage technologies are expanded at a far greater pace, increasing the number of those employed by these industries from current level of 26,400 to 78,000 by 2030.
Developed in cooperation with BSW-Solar and The smarter E Europe, the EuPD Research report recommends an annual growth target of 10 GW for solar PV capacity in Germany which needs to be accompanied by a significant increase in storage capacity. "There are significant employment effects associated with a forecasted cumulative photovoltaic capacity of 162 GW and a capacity of 15 GWh of residential, commercial and grid storage systems in the year 2030," claim the trio.