A comparison of the amount of solar and wind power produced by Switzerland and the 27 EU countries has found that Germany is one of the biggest producers of green energy per capita in Europe.
The Swiss Energy Foundation (SES) recently published a comparison of the amount of solar and wind power produced by Switzerland and the 27 EU countries in 2021. The report showed that Germany was the third-highest producer of green energy, coming behind only Denmark and Sweden.
Although it places third overall, the federal republic ranks some way behind the two Scandinavian countries, with Germany producing 1.970 kilowatt-hours per capita of solar and wind energy, while Denmark and Sweden produce 2.990 and 2.782 kilowatt-hours per capita respectively.
Germany produced 601 kilowatt-hours of solar energy last year, which was the second-highest in Europe behind the Netherlands (654 kilowatt-hours). Germany was also the fifth-highest producer of wind power in the EU (1.369 kilowatt-hours), coming in behind Denmark (2.754 kilowatt-hours), Sweden (2.637 kilowatt-hours), Ireland (1.942 kilowatt-hours) and Finland (1.466 kilowatt-hours).
The Swiss Energy Foundation found that Switzerland actually performed pretty poorly in the ranking, coming in 23rd place. Switzerland only produced 373 kilowatt-hours of green energy per capita last year (356 kilowatt-hours of solar energy, and 17 kilowatt-hours of wind energy). Only Hungary, Czechia, Slovenia, Slovakia and Latvia performed worse.
Germany has long been working towards shifting to producing more green energy. Just last year, Angela Merkel’s government set the goal of making Germany climate neutral by 2045, five years earlier than previously planned. The environment minister at the time announced a package of laws that would help achieve these targets, including obliging landlords to bear half the cost of the new carbon emissions tax, as well as subsidies for energy improvements and more climate-friendly buildings.
Germany’s new “traffic-light” coalition has made green energy a central part of its policy. Back in April, the government passed the so-called “Easter Package”, which aims to produce electricity from 80 percent green energy sources by 2030. Germany’s new government has also been forced to hasten its production of green energy, which has included looking into hydrogen energy, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine.