The sale of emission rights for carbon dioxide is bringing in more and more money for the German state. At the auction of emissions certificates, 3.16 billion euros came together in 2019. That was around 600 million euros more than in the previous year, said the emissions trading office of the Federal Environment Agency.
Power plants and other industrial plants have to issue as many permits each year as they emitted CO2. Each emission allowance allows one tonne of CO2 to be emitted. If the company's available allowances are insufficient, it must buy emission allowances on the market.
EU-wide emissions trading is intended to provide an incentive to invest in more climate protection. The proceeds from the auctions go to an energy and climate fund that is used to finance measures for the energy transition.
In the beginning, the prices for the certificates were very low. However, because their number is increasingly reduced, prices rise. A certificate at the beginning of the auctions of the European Energy Exchange EEX in Leipzig usually cost less than ten euros. According to the emissions trading agency, the average price per certificate rose to 14.92 euros in 2018 and 24.65 euros in 2019.
"2019 has been a crazy year for electricity prices"
According to experts, the increased prices for emission certificates are one of the reasons for the significant decline in coal power generation in Germany. "2019 was a very crazy year in terms of electricity prices," said Fabian Huneke of the energy consultancy Energy Brainpool.
"We had historically low gas prices and high CO2 certificate prices and coal prices on the spot market," said Huneke. This has resulted in gas power plants being able to produce electricity much more cheaply, and coal electricity has been pushed back in the market. Gas prices would have increased again in winter.
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Electricity generation from gas emits less CO2 than generation from lignite. That is why fewer CO2 certificates would be needed there, said Professor Bruno Burger from the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems. The costs for the gas and the certificates were at times "below the pure CO2 certificate costs of the lignite-fired power plant".
More electricity from wind energy than from lignite
According to calculations by the Energy Balances Working Group, total brown and hard coal consumption in Germany decreased by one fifth each. Wind energy displaced lignite from the first place of the most important energy sources for electricity.
Wind turbines on land and at sea provided 21 percent of gross electricity generation in Germany, lignite still 19 percent, hard coal only 9 percent. Overall, the share of renewable energies rose to 40 percent according to figures from the energy industry association BDEW.
For the coming year, however, Fraunhofer researcher Burger does not expect that more electricity will continue to be generated from wind energy - because expansion is stalling: According to the Federal Network Agency, only around 160 new wind turbines had been built in Germany by November 2019, fewer than in 20 years ,
