Germany aims to push energy efficiency with digitalisation strategy
Tagesspiegel Background
The German government plans a new digitalisation strategy聽 that could pave the way for greater energy efficiency in the electricty sector, industry, and buildings, reports newsletter Tagesspiegel Background. The plan, which is expected to be agreed on 31 August, would boost the rollout of聽smart meters, encourage聽industries to聽make聽their聽consumption more flexible, and聽make it necessary for the聽CO2 footprints聽of聽new buildings to be predetermined before they are built. Financing for the ambitious plan remains unclear, however, and proposed measures could change following budget negotiations this autumn, according to the newsletter, which as seen a draft of the strategy.
A main goal of the draft plan is to help the energy sector聽鈥渄e-bureaucratise鈥澛燼nd accelerate the聽rollout聽of smart meters, which has been聽slower than initially planned. The use of the systems in households and companies is expected to increase 80 percent by 2025. In addition, data centres聽are to become more energy-efficient聽by making largely wasted heat from supercomputers available for heating networks and adopting more climate-friendly cooling methods. Further aims of the digital strategy include making energy consumption in industrial production more flexible through greater automated control, as well as making agriculture more sustainable through聽digitalisation, which could also make the sector聽more animal-friendly, resource-saving, efficient and resilient, .聽Likewise, greater digitalisation in the transport sector would make聽rail transport more efficient and climate-friendly.聽In the聽construction industry,聽digital Building Information Modeling (BIM)聽uses聽digital models聽to聽plan聽and control聽construction processes聽and calculate CO2 balances聽of buildings before they are built, thus increasing their overall efficiency.
Implementing the coalition government鈥檚 plan will be聽the Ministry of Finance聽and聽the Ministry for Digital and Transport聽鈥� both run by the business-friendly Free Democratic Party (FDP) 鈥� and the Green-controlled Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action in coordination with Social Democratic (SPD)-led Federal Chancellery.
