by Pim Derwort

The start of a new year is often accompanied by looking back at what happened in the past and looking forward to the year ahead. While it will take a while for the final numbers to be released, in Germany the Energiewende appears to have come along strongly in 2017. Initial estimates show that the share of renewable energies in gross energy consumption grew to more than 36 per cent, up considerably from the 31.6 per cent in the previous year. Early in the morning of New Year’s Day, for a brief period, Germany was even powered entirely by renewable energy, the first time in modern history.

However, despite the growing share of renewables, coal remained the most important energy source for German electricity production, with around 37 per cent of gross electricity generation coming from coal (with lignite and hard coal accounting for 22.6% and 14.4%…