Germany's energy use falls by 3.4% in first half 2024, says AGEB
FRANKFURT, July 31 (Reuters) -Germany's energy use dropped 3.4% in the first half of 2024, industry statistics group AGEB said on Wednesday, citing mild weather and a slow economic performance as the main reasons.
Usage in Europe's biggest economy fell to 185.2 million metric tons of coal equivalent, an industry standard measure, compared with 191.8 million recorded in the first six months of 2024, AGEB's January-June report showed.
Notable numbers included an 18.7% drop in use of imported hard coal.
This was mainly due to power utilities generating less electricity overall, and, within the total, reporting a relative rise in output from renewable energy sources, AGEB said.
Consumption of domestically-mined brown coal fell by an identical 18.7% year-on-year, resulting from the same two factors, while, in addition, some capacity was closed for good under a continuous exit programme.
Both the weather and the changing structure of Germany's energy usage, given targeted efforts to curtail coal inputs, led to savings in CO2 emissions of 17 million metric tons compared to the first half of 2023, AGEB estimated.
It did not give an absolute emissions total for January-June 2024.
Germany emitted 674 million CO2-equivalent tons of greenhouse gases in 2023, 10.1% less than in 2022, according to official data.
ENERGY SOURCE | H1 2023* | H1 2024 | PCT CHANGE YR/YR | RESPECTIVE SHARE OF TOTAL USE IN 2024 |
Oil | 65.2 | 65.5 | + 0.4 | 35.3 |
Natural gas | 49.8 | 50.2 | + 0.7 | 27.1 |
Hard coal | 16.9 | 13.8 | - 18.7 | 7.4 |
Lignite | 16.0 | 13.0 | - 18.7 | 7.0 |
Nuclear energy | 2.7 | ... | - 100.0 | 0.0 |
Renewables | 37.9 | 38.3 | + 1.0 | 20.7 |
Balance of foreign power trade | - 0.4 | 1.1 | ... | 0.6 |
Others | 3.6 | 3.5 | - 2.4 | 1.9 |
TOTAL | 191.8 | 185.2 | - 3.4 | 100.0 |
*Energy use numbers in million tonnes coal equivalent. One unit equals 29.308 petajoules. Table allows for rounding errors.
Reporting by Vera Eckert; Editing by Kevin Liffey
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