Projected Costs of Generating Electricity - OECD Nuclear Energy ...

Table 4 – Gross electricity supply in 2003 compared to 2002
2002 2003 Change
TWh gross TWh gross %
Public power plants a 515.2 526.8 2.3
Industry 47.5 49.0 3.2
Private 18.5 21.2 14.6
Import 46.2 45.7 -1.1
Total deposition 627.4 642.7 2.4
a. Including the power generation of the Deutsche Bahn, the national railway organisation.
The electricity supply in Germany is based on several production forms and fuels. The distribution of
net electricity supply in Germany is shown in Table 5. Electricity production in 2003 was based mainly
on coal-fired (hard coal and lignite) steam turbine (50.1%) and nuclear (27.9%) power plants. Natural gas
has a share of about 9.8% of the total net power generation, an increase of about 7% compared to the year
2002. The supply of natural gas to Germany comes via pipelines from the Netherlands, Great Britain,
Norway and Russia. The electricity production from oil is rather negligible at about 0.9% of the total
generation.
As regards the use of renewable energies for electricity production, Germany can point to very high
growth rates especially for wind energy. In 2003 about 50 TWh of net electricity (8.9% of the total net
electricity generation) were produced from renewable resources, of which 50% is from hydro and 38%
from wind power plants. Because of the impact of the Renewable Energy Source Act, over 14 600 MW
capacity of wind power plants were installed in Germany by 2003; this is an increase of about 2 600 MW
on the year 2002. Even so, hydro power, with a share of 4.5% of the total net electricity production, is still
the largest renewable energy producer in Germany despite a decrease of hydro-power generation of about
10% compared to the year 2002 due to the very dry year of 2003. Other renewable energy carriers like
biomass and photovoltaic account for about 1.1% of the total net electricity generation.
Table 5 – Net electricity generation by energy carrier in 2002 and 2003
2002 2003 Change
TWh net % TWh net % %
Nuclear 156.3 28.7 156.4 27.9 0
Lignite 145.2 26.6 146.4 26.1 1
Hard coal 124.0 22.8 134.4 24.0 8
Natural gas 51.3 9.4 54.9 9.8 7
Oil 5.8 1.1 5.3 0.9 -9
Hydro 27.9 5.1 25.0 4.5 -10
Wind 15.9 2.9 19.0 3.4 19
Other renewable a 5.2 1.0 6.0 1.1 15
Other b 13.4 2.5 13.0 2.3 -3
Total 545.0 100 560.4 100 3
a. Other renewable energy carriers like solar.
b. Other energy carriers like waste.
In Table 6 the installed net capacity of the power plants in Germany for the years 2002 and 2003 are
shown for the public supply only, including the share of the national railway organisation. 12 In the year
2003 there was a total installed net capacity of 100 281 MW which is rather similar to the year 2002.
12. Most of the wind power capacities are installed by private producers which are not included in Table 6.
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