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Aerial view, Weserstadion, stadium with solar panels on the roof, Bremen, Germany
The solar-panelled roof of Werder Bremen football stadium. The football club switched to clean energy in 2008, but recent subsidy cuts have affected the solar industry in Germany. Photograph: Alamy
The solar-panelled roof of Werder Bremen football stadium. The football club switched to clean energy in 2008, but recent subsidy cuts have affected the solar industry in Germany. Photograph: Alamy

German solar ambitions at risk from cuts to subsidies

This article is more than 9 years old

Germany is home to solar-powered football stadiums and funfairs but the country’s renewable energy future still faces obstacles

German ambitions to generate the vast majority of its power from the sun, wind and other renewable sources by the middle of the century are at risk from cuts to solar subsidies and weak EU clean energy targets, industry and experts say.

The country’s target of getting 80% of energy from renewable sources by 2050 is one of the few to match the scaling-up of renewable power that the UN’s climate science panel said on Sunday was needed to avoid “severe, widespread, and irreversible impacts” from global warming.The Energiewende (‘Energy transition’) programme to chisel fossil fuels out of Germany’s energy mix has a breathtakingly ambitious air that has swept through the north city-state of Bremen, where even the football stadiums and funfairs run entirely on clean energy.

In 2008, shortly after the EU set its green energy targets for 2020, the Freimarkt funfair and Werder Bremen football club both switched to renewable power, with the club completely renovating its stadium in a business deal with energy company EWE.

“Our colours are green and white,” said Klaus Filbry, the managing director of Werder Bremen, which is home to Europe’s first and largest solar-powered football stadium.

“The green stands for being environmentally conscious and the white stands for peace. It is important for us. We get a lot of support from the community and we want to give back to them. All the electricity we produce goes into the grid system.”

Fans can sign up to buy 1% of their electricity from the stadium, which with a solar capacity of 1.2MW produces enough surplus energy to power 400-500 houses a year. The better the team perform, the lower the electricity tariff, although this is not a selling point for Bremen fans this year.

The Weser Stadium is armadillo-plated with 200,000 single module solar cells that resemble a huge postmodern lampshade. Next to it is a solar-powered restaurant.

Werder Bremen uses renewable energies and equiped their stadium around with solar panels
Werder Bremen stadium’s solar roof panels produce enough surplus energy to power 400-500 houses a year. Photograph: Martin Rose/Bongarts

Not all the Werder Bremen players were initially excited by the green makeover. But Clemens Fritz, the team captain, told the Guardian: “When I heard that the stadium would be transformed into a ‘futuristic spacecraft’ I was delighted that it would not only look fantastic but also generate environmentally friendly energy.”

“The whole facade and roof were built for €11.5m,” according to EWE spokesman and Bremen fan, Christian Bartsche. “Economically, it just breaks even but in marketing terms it has such a positive image that it is a plus for us. The Weser Stadium is like a lighthouse that anyone can see as they fly into Bremen. It lights up the region.”

Bremen is not alone. The nearby state of Schleswig-Holstein is close to producing all of its electricity from wind power, and Germany as a whole is aiming for 40% of electricity from renewable sources by 2025.

Filbry said he could imagine a club attaching wind turbines to its floodlights. “Like us, it would have a unique visibility and it could work – especially in an area where there’s a lot of wind,” he said

But in the solar industry, falling solar panel costs spurred by Chinese mass production have sucked almost half of the jobs out of a sector that employed 100,000 people in 2012. At the same time, cheaper solar has reduced retail prices, spurring consumer uptake but bringing cuts to public support schemes.

Filbry said that the removal of tax incentives for solar had already affected all clubs with tie-ins to renewable energy firms: “A lot of those partnerships were finished because of changes to the law and that certainly had a financial effect that was felt in the league. Less money came in. Our sponsorship with one company went down from €500,000 to €200,000. We were able to compensate and find other partners but it did hurt the club financially.”

Filbry admits that the club had less money to spend on players for a time but stoutly denies any link to the club’s current position at the bottom of the Bundesliga.

Subsidy cutbacks have been felt across the industry, as the cost of solar power has fallen closer to the cost of fossil fuel energy. From a zenith of $0.90 per kilowatt hour, German feed-in-tariffs that pay people for generating energy from solar have fallen to around $0.20 per kwh today. The guaranteed 20-year tariff offered to early household investors is now a thing of the past.

Solar panels on the roofs of residential houses, Oberkirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Solar panels on the roofs of residential houses, Oberkirchen, Germany. Last year, renewables provided around 24% of Germany’s electricity. Photograph: Jochen Tack/Corbis

An EU state aid decision this year that solar had reached industrial ‘maturity’ will accelerate the subsidy tail-off in 2015. Anger is widespread in Germany that the EU commissioner responsible for the decision, Joaquín Almunia, allowed nuclear energy in the UK another 30 years of public backing.

“It is completely irrational,” said Milan Nitzschke, the vice president of SolarWorld, one of the world’s largest solar panel manufacturers. The Bonn-based firm failed in a recent attempt to launch an EU anti-dumping case against Chinese manufacturers.

“We don’t have subsidy free markets anywhere in the EU so why is the commission ruling against feed-in-tariffs for renewables in Germany while granting them in the UK for nuclear?” Nitzschke said. “The thinking is completely wrong. It is creating a less efficient system that only benefits major players with huge windfall effects.”

The EU’s recent decision to mandate a 27% share for renewables across Europe by 2030 was “only symbolic, nothing more,” he added, as the commission would have no enforcement powers over member states.

“But we know there is a need for renewables in every European energy market and solar is the upcoming cheapest energy source. We’re now at a level where we can compete with gas-fired plants when the sun shines, so solar will anyhow become one of the major electricity sources.”

Frauke Thies, the energy policy director for the European Photovoltaic Industry Association told the Guardian, said: “Downsizing the EU’s political ambition for renewables now means stopping right before the finish-line. By slowing down the pace of renewables uptake, Europe risks being left behind in the global energy transition.”

Last year, renewables provided around 24% of Germany’s electricity, but coal and lignite accounted for 45% - 2% up from 2011, when the country began switching off nuclear power plants in the wake of the Fukushima disaster.

The phase-out is expected to complete in 2022, adding to a sense of urgency in the energiewende transition strategy.

New innovations, such as an expensive Eqoo solar storage unit that EWE put on the market in April, are to provide somewhere to bank unused solar power. The Eqoo stores solar energy for around six hours but so far just 80 units have been sold.

“You have to inform the public about it and convince them it’s a good idea,” Bartsche said. “You also have to find the first-time buyers, as customers who already have solar panels on their homes are getting enough money for their kilowatt hours.” With home-generated solar electricity around half the price charged by power companies, it makes more sense to use your own sunshine.

Next Energy’s thin solar panels can be used for window panes. Low EU targets and subsidy cuts are also impacting the next-generation solar sector. Photograph: Arthur Neslen

At the Next Energy research lab in Oldenburg, thin-film solar panels are in development in a variety of colours. The flimsy panels are one micrometre thick – compared to 200-300 micrometres for traditional PV panels – and can be used for windowpanes and house tiles.

Dr Thibo Kilper, Next Energy’s research manager says that commercial negotiations are underway and the product could be appearing in new house builds by 2016. But similar problems are holding the next-generation solar sector back.

“A lot of partners for publicly-funded projects went bankrupt and disappeared from the market,” Kilper said. “It meant that many months and years of work were for nothing. It is a little frustrating but we have to be creative. We are looking at other European markets.”

The EU’s relatively low 2030 target was “frustrating,” he said, as a dynamic market and clear public interest were not being allowed to grow as fast as possible.

“There are strong lobbies from conventional fossil fuels working against us. This is clear,” agreed Dr Wedigo von Wedel, Next Energy’s head of energy storage division. “There needs to be some money and force behind our research to make the energiewende a reality.”

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