A national forecast to 2050 FOREWORD For all the opportunities and challenges that lieahead, DNV’s team of energy experts stands willingand prepared to help our customers transitionsmarter and faster. I am delighted to introduce this forecast of Germany’s energy transition to 2050, whichbuilds on DNV’s well-established global and regional energy transition outlooks, which areforecasts and not scenarios. This report is the result of collaboration between our centralenergy transition research team, our energy system experts in Germany, and our network ofcustomers and other experts there, to whom we are very grateful. other world regions, but not to the degreethat energy becomes barrier to success: other"Draghi elements" of competitiveness will bemore important. Overall, we forecast that Germany will achieve avery much more sustainable energy system whilenot sacrificing the other two corners of the energytrilemma: affordability and energy security. Thesame logic applies globally: renewably-generatedelectricity is growing rapidly worldwide becauseit makes sense environmentally, economically andin terms of energy security. That is the long arc ofdevelopment, despite attempts by certain countriesto promote fossil fuels in the short term. Germany has long been a front runner in the energytransition and has established a national target toachieve a net zero energy economy by 2045. Ourinvestigation finds that Germany will miss this target— but by a narrow margin. We forecast that emis-sions will fall by 95% by 2050. That is a very big steptowards decarbonization and is largely facilitated bya more than doubling of electricity use across thecountry in the next 25 years. Electrification bringsefficiency benefits, which can be seen in the energyintensity of the economy (i.e. energy use per unit ofGDP), which will almost halve during our forecastperiod. Germany will achieve a very much moresustainable energy system while notsacrificing the other two corners of the energytrilemma: affordability and energy security. That is not to say that the transition is straight-forward. A great deal of investment is at stake— some EUR 3.3 trillion needs to be spent onenergy infrastructure alone in the comingdecades in Germany. Also, those industriesthat are currently heavily reliant on fossil fuels willneed to decarbonize by investing in electrification,bioenergy, hydrogen, and carbon capture andstorage. Each of those options invariably involveslarge upfront costs, and in the case of hydrogen itwill only be late in the 2030s that we see hydrogencosts starting to decline to levels that do notrequire subsidies. The big question is whether all these benefits canbe achieved at acceptable cost. Given the extraor-dinarily high gas and electricity prices that Germanyhas endured in the recent past, there is no smallanxiety attached to this question. Our analysisshows the transition is affordable in Germany. Here,I encourage you to read our findings in detail, butour overall conclusion is that German industry willbe paying energy prices on par with the rest ofEurope throughout our forecast period. This impliesenergy costs that are moderately higher than some Perhaps the most startling benefit of the transitionahead for Germany is that by building out domesticrenewable generation, including biogas, Germanywill advance from a position where it currentlyimports 70% of its primary energy to a positionwhere its energy system will be just 27% relianton imports. Remi Eriksen CONTENTS Foreword 5.1Power grids765.2Storage and flexibility805.3Electricity market design83 1Introduction 1.1About this Outlook1.2General assumptions 6Natural gas, hydrogen and CO2infrastructure886.1Hydrogen and gas infrastructure needs896.2CCU / CCS93 2Energy and climate policy12 2.1Status quo and long-standingtransition motivations2.2Germany's transition andclimate ambitions2.3The German energy andclimate change policy approach2.4Policy factors in ETO Germany 7Competitiveness of Germany’s Industry98 8.1Energy infrastructure investmentsand financing1058.2The impact of energy efficiency1168.3Energy import dependency119 3Energy demand 3.1Transport energy demand3.2Buildings energy demand3.3Manufacturing energy demand3.4Non-energy use 4Energy supply 4.1Electricity4.2Hydrogen4.3Fossil fuels and bioenergy4.4Heat HIGHLIGHTS 1.Germany will electrify 46% of energy demand by 2050, up from 19% today 2.Energy imports are 70% of Germany’s primary energy today but willfall to just 27% by 2050 3.Natural gas and hydrogen will co-exist by 2050, with similar demand levels— and one-third of the hydrogen produced domestically 4.CO2emissions will fall by 89% by 2045 and by 95% by 2050 compared with1990. This means that the 2045 climate neutrality target will not be achieved 5.EUR 3.3 trillion will be invested in energy infrastructure in the next 25 years 6.Energy prices from an increasingly renewables-dominated system will notdisadvantage German industry, but, as el