ENBW ENERGIE BADEN-WÜRTTEMBERG AG 
"For the first time, more than half of our electricity is visibly coming from renewables," explained the Green politician on Wednesday, referring to the electricity balance for 2023. At the same time, significantly less electricity will be produced from coal. "We are therefore making visible progress towards a climate-neutral electricity supply," said Habeck. "We have achieved an upward trend and are continuing it."
The Federal Network Agency had previously announced that renewable energies would have contributed around 55 percent to the electricity grid load in 2023, compared to around 48.5 percent in the previous year. Wind power plants would have accounted for the largest share of this, especially on land. Onshore and offshore plants together would have produced 31.1% of the grid load. Photovoltaics covered 12.1 percent and biomass 8.4 percent. The remaining 3.4 percent was accounted for by hydropower and other renewables.
Electricity generation from coal declined last year, while natural gas gained in importance. According to the Federal Network Agency, generation from hard coal was 36.8 percent and from lignite 24.8 percent lower than in 2022. Generation from natural gas was 31.3 percent higher.
Overall, electricity consumption decreased. According to the Federal Network Agency, the grid load fell by a total of 5.3% to 456.8 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2023, compared to 482.6 TWh in the previous year. Own consumption by power plants and industrial grids is not included in this figure. If they are included in the calculation, the share of renewable energies in gross electricity consumption tends to decrease, according to the Federal Network Agency.
(Report by Holger Hansen, edited by Ralf Banser; if you have any queries, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets)).
