A German-Norwegian comparative case study about similarities, discrepancies and other attributes focusing on wind power potentials and transnational electricity exchange

Abstract

Rapid climate change due to greenhouse gas emissions, high consumption of water, food and energy, uncertainties in energy security and sustainability concerns are only a few topics the world is facing today and in the future. Taking responsibility, Europe is about to change and to push towards a new industrial revolution. The European Union set up several measures and frameworks, which commit all member states to a low-carbon economy and to promote “green” growth. Mandatory targets for 2020, 2030 and 2050 have been set by Brussels, to tackle climate change and the related impacts on us and the ecosystems. Decreasing green-house gas emissions and decreasing fossil fuel consumption, however, can only be achieved by energy efficiency measures, a decrease in general consumption and by an enormous in-creasing of renewable energy technologies, both for electricity generation and heating. Today, the limits and the dependency on fossil fuels seem to be more obvious than they were decades ago. This and the fact that the European Union is counted as the world’s third largest CO2 emitter boosted the development of renewable energy technologies since the turn of the millennium. Facing this change and conquering barriers, both Germany and Norway show high ambitions in reducing fossil fuel consumption, increasing the share of renewables in all sectors and in securing the energy supply for a sustainable future. Developing different renewable energy systems, wind energy clearly plays an important part in achieving the European energy and climate targets. Wind as a source of “clean”, affordable energy, is worldwide available. Wind energy does not emit any greenhouse gases and shows low environmental impact in general. Nevertheless, the biggest problem is the dependency on wind. This becomes crucial when relying on wind power as a main pillar in the national ener-gy supply. Whether wind is blowing or not, the demand has to be met. Germany has high hopes in wind energy, and projects to become nearly 100 % renewable within 2050. This, however, can only be achieved in using Norway’s potential to store energy in reservoir hydro power plants. This bachelor thesis will give an overview about Germany’s and Norway’s power portfolio, present similarities as well as discrepancies, point towards measures taken for the future and explain how both nations can benefit from renewable energy development as well as from transnational electricity exchange. Focusing on wind power, this thesis will demonstrate that there is plenty of room to use wind power potentials, both in Germany and Norway.