As part of the Energiewende, Germany’s transition to non-nuclear, sustainable power sources, the Ministry of Education and Research will pump at least 300 million euros more into research on green hydrogen by 2023. A total of €180 million in ministry funds were already allocated to such research in the coming years.

The German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy has chosen twenty energy research consortiums to be eligible for €100 million a year in state funds. Their selection came after a nationwide competition as part of Germany’s ‘Energiewende’, its transition to renewable and sustainable energies. 

Amidst all the uncertainty created by trade conflicts, particularly between the US and China, the electronics industry in Germany is proving remarkably robust. According to the Industry organisation ZVEI, Germany exported €54.1bn worth of electronics in the first quarter of 2019 – up 5.8% over the same period in 2018. 

Renewable energies covered 38% of Germany’s gross power requirement in the first three quarters of 2018, according to the Federal Association for Energy and Water (BDEW). The new figure is a three percentage point rise on the figure for 2017 and was boosted by an exceptional weather year for renewable energies, with plenty of wind through the spring and an exceptionally sunny summer. 

Germany took another step forward in its Energiewende recently, as the largest wind park in the German Baltic coastline region, Baltic 2, was switched on. Greeted with a strong breeze, the 80 windmills lying north of the popular holiday island of Rügen are set to provide 288MW of energy per year, which should provide for some 340,000 households.

Germany is now making major advances in offshore wind. February saw the offshore windpark Borkum Riffgrund 1 feed electricity into the grid for the first time. Once complete, the 312MW project will consist of 78 turbines. February also saw the first turbines installed at the 288MW Amrumbank West site and the start of operations at Europe’s first purely communal offshore windpark, Trianel Windpark Borkum. The first 24 turbines at the Butendi...

German electronics manufacturers overcame challenging international markets to achieve 2.4% year-on-year growth for the 11 months preceding November 2014, the ZVEI (Zentralverband Elektrotechnik- und Elektronikindustrie eV, German Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association) has reported. Turnover in the German industry is expected to have totaled €171bn over the year.