Energy transition: US Secretary of Energy spreads misinformation about Germany

In his 30-minute inaugural speech as the new US Secretary of Energy on February 5, Chris Wright dedicated around four minutes to the German energy transition. While it is often cited as a shining example elsewhere, Wright presented the energy transition as a warning for the US. However, the facts and figures he cited are largely false or misleading. Climate.Table offers a correction and assessment.

One of Wright's central claims is that the electricity prices in German y have tripled in the last 15 years; the context suggests that he was referring to the price for private households. This claim is incorrect. In fact, the price of electricity has risen by around 50 percent during this period (source); although this is an increase, it is not dramatically higher than the general inflation rate, which was 34 percent during this period.

Even if the statement refers to the electricity exchange price, it is still inaccurate. In 2024, it was almost twice as high as in 2009 (source). And this increase was not caused by the energy transition, but primarily by gas prices, which have risen sharply due to the discontinuation of Russian pipeline imports. This is evident firstly from the fact that the electricity exchange price fell to a low in 2020 and only increased in the wake of the Russian attack on Ukraine. Secondly, a comparable increase was also observed in countries such as France and Poland, which have different energy policies from Germany.

Another of Wright's central claims is that Germany's industrial output has fallen by 20 percent over 15 years, parallel to the energy transition. However, the opposite is true : According to the Federal Statistical Office, industrial production in Germany did not decline between 2009 and 2024, but increased significantly by 10.6 percent. The figures compared are adjusted for inflation and calendar effects (source). The impression Wright conveyed that the German economy is no longer competitive internationally does not reflect reality either: At 239 billion euros in 2024, the German export surplus was 73 percent higher in nominal terms than 15 years previously. Trade with the US alone generated a surplus of 70 billion euros (source).

Wright's unspecified statement that the energy transition has made the electricity supply unreliable is also inaccurate. In fact, it was more reliable in 2023 than in 2009, with an average outage time of less than 13 minutes per year (source) – and more reliable by a factor of 10 to 30 than in the US, which, depending on the calculation method, had outage times of between 118 and 366 minutes per year in 2023 (source).

Wright also suggests that the energy transition is of little benefit to the climate, stating that the share of fossil fuels in Germany's primary energy consumption has only fallen from 80 percent to 74 percent since 2010. Although the decline was even slightly lower (source), the composition of primary energy consumption is not a suitable indicator for determining the carbon footprint. Because fossil-fuel power plants release more than half of the primary energy used as waste heat, primary energy demand drops significantly when switching to renewable energies. As a result, the proportion of remaining fossil fuels remains comparatively high, even if their use decreases significantly in absolute terms.

To assess the actual effect of the energy transition on the climate, absolute figures are more meaningful. These show that energy production from fossil fuels in Germany has declined by 27 percent since 2010. This has cut German greenhouse gas emissions by almost 30 percent in the same period (source 1 / source 2). By comparison, the United States only managed to reduce emissions by 14 percent in the same period.

Correct – but not relevant to the argument – is Wright's statement that electricity output in Germany is 20 percent lower than 20 years ago. However, this is not a sign of lower efficiency, but a consequence of lower demand. Around half of the decrease can be attributed to lower domestic electricity consumption (partly due to greater efficiency and partly due to lower production in energy-intensive industries). The other half of the decrease is because Germany exported less electricity to neighboring countries.

The statement that installed capacity in Germany has risen from 100 to 240 gigawatts in the last 15 years is true, at least based on the trend; it has actually risen from 144 to 263 gigawatts. However, this increase is not a problem, but a logical consequence of the fact that wind and solar power plants have significantly fewer full-load hours than fossil fuel power plants in the past and therefore require a higher installed capacity overall.

With the remark that winter temperatures in Northern Europe are cold and cloudy, Wright suggests that using solar power in Germany makes little sense. Disregarding that Germany is not geographically part of Northern Europe and that solar cells work more efficiently at low temperatures, it is quite true that solar systems produce significantly less energy in the winter than in the summer due to the shorter days and the lower position of the sun. However, this is not a problem because solar systems complement wind turbines, which produce significantly more electricity in winter than in summer (source). In total, solar cells generated just under 13 percent of Germany's electricity last year.

Wright put the cost of the energy transition to date at 500 billion dollars. In absolute terms, this figure is correct; there are even higher estimates depending on what is included. However, this figure is not very indicative. For one thing, the sum accrued over 20 years, which means that it is actually around 25 billion dollars per year. Secondly, the number would have to be compared with the investments in the energy system and additional expenditure on fossil fuel imports that would have been necessary without the energy transition. Furthermore, it would have to be taken into account that renewable electricity generates costs due to the guaranteed remuneration, but in return, lowers the electricity exchange prices due to its low marginal costs.