A transition pathway for Germany's industry: Which role for energy efficiency?

Germany's Government has committed to an energy transition that reduces greenhouse gases by at least by 80 % by 2050 compared to 1990 level. This goal requires ambitious action in all sectors, also the industry, which emitted about 21 % of Germany's total GHG emissions in 2013. We present a mitigation scenario that achieves a reduction in GHG emissions of 83 % by 2050 for the industrial sector. While this paper presents results for the industry sector, the scenario calculations have been accompanied by similar scenarios in all sectors aiming to achieve a total GHG mitigation of 80 % for the entire economy. The industry scenarios are based on the bottom-up model FORECAST, which allows simulating policies and induced technical change. It provides a very detailed breakdown of technologies. The resulting transition pathway reveals high importance of energy efficiency, particularly in electric motor systems, innovative process technologies and steam systems. It is resulting in a reduction of electricity demand by about 16 % and a reduction of fuel demand by about 32 % from 2010 to 2050. This shows that energy-efficiency alone is not sufficient - although important. The use of biomass increases to about 120 TWh in 2050. Coal is phased out in all sectors but in the iron and steel industry, which also experiences a drastic shift towards electric steel. Secondary production routes and alternative materials are also increasingly employed in paper, cement, glass and aluminium industries. By 2050, carbon capture and storage mitigates about 24 Mt CO2 annually from emission-intensive processes (clinker and lime burning, steel, ammonia, ethylene and methanol). Power-to-heat gains importance after 2040 and reaches about 29 TWh in 2050. This scenario reflects a radical change to be achieved in less than 35 years, while the industry sector often shows high reluctance towards new policies and has a very long-living capital stock.