Renewable energy sector begins Action Alliance

GERMANY: On 8 March, around 100 representatives of the renewable energy sector, from Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands, have joined forces to form an action alliance.

Made up of operators, research institutes, universities, journalists, communication agencies, companies and associations, this group aims to develop a joint communication strategy. The first workshop took place during the photovoltaic symposium in Bad Staffelstein. Further meetings and political round table discussions are planned.

Remaining clean: transparency, stability and energy democracy
The subsidies for fossil fuels in Germany amount to over 20 billion euros annually, assuming 70 euros per ton of carbon dioxide. If the German government’s decision of the energy transformation to more renewables (the socalled Energiewende) is reversed, carbon dioxide emissions and costs and subsidies for the consequences of climate change will continue to rise.

While the levies for renewable energies are clearly declared, the end user sees nothing of the billions in profit and the external costs of old energy structures on his or her energy bill. The current plans of the Federal Government, to cut remunerations they had already agreed to, burden the protection of legitimate expectation and are an encroachment upon property rights.

The action alliance calls for transparency in electricity costs, stable grids thanks to the combination of all renewable energies, stable framework conditions and energy democracy.

Becoming clean: 100 percent renewable energies
The price for a solar power plant has halved in only three years. The many decentralised renewable energy systems can not only introduce a democratic energy revolution in Germany. The technical challenges of full provision with renewable energies can be solved – this has already been shown by numerous research projects.

The action alliance is convinced that renewable energies can supply 100 percent of energy needs even before 2050, because it is technically possible, affordable and citizen-oriented  – a number of municipal initiatives even have taken up this goal for the 2020s.