Promoting Green Power in Canada - Centre for Human Settlements

Promoting Green Power in Canada Pollution Probe3.3.2 Germany — A Wind and SolarLeaderGermany restructured its electricity marketsin 1998, with retail competition, includingresidential green power offerings, starting inAugust 1999. Green power sales had limitedinfluence on new renewables creation: thereare currently (2002) 325,000 German greenpower customers (about 0.75 % of allelectricity customers), 75% of whom haveselected products that are offered as greenand based on 100% existing largehydropower. This can be explained by thefact that, initially, marketers priced theseproducts below generic electricity, althoughmore recently they have been offered at a 5-10% price premium [NREL 2002, p. 25].Retailer NaturEnergy, which offers a largehydro product, was the first companyoffering a green power product on theGerman market and gained most of its largemarket share when its sister company, EnergieDienst GmbH, switched all of its 150,000customers to the cheaper green product in1999 (priced 10% below previous rates),similar to what happened in California. AAdded Capacity [MW]3000250020001500100050001990199219941996199820002002Figure 3.14 — Added and Total Wind PowerCapacities in Germany (as of June 2002)[BWE 2002]100009000800070006000500040003000200010000Installed Capacity [MW]Government support for renewablesin Germany was driven byawareness of export markets andinward investment.second German retailer, Aquapower, hasgained another 84,000 customers with itslarge hydropower product being pricedbelow standard rates. Since it tries to marketits green product at a premium, consumerinterest has slowed down considerably [NREL2002, p. 28]. Given that wind power nowrepresents 3.3% of Germany’s energy portfolio,it is clear that green power marketing has notcreated a significant pull for new renewablesdevelopment. The reasons for Germany’swind boom (see Figure 3.14) must be foundelsewhere.The country continues to lead the world inwind energy, with 12,250 wind turbinestotalling 9,840 MW in generating capacity.The industry employs 35,000 people. Thenorthern region of Lower Saxony harboursthe largest amount of wind generatingcapacity, with 2,426 MW inoperation. Schleswig-Holstein(1,555 MW) remains the leadingregion in terms of the proportion ofwind electricity generation (28%),followed by Mecklenburg-WesternPomerania (21%), Saxony-Anhalt(11%), Lower Saxony (10%), andBrandenburg (9%) [AWEA 2002].Germany also leads the way withphotovoltaic purchases by buildingand homeowners with a 100,000-solar roof program, similar to theone in Japan (see Box 3.2). Thegovernment provides 10-yearinterest-free loans, with repayments39