Modeling the Transformation of the German Energy System Until 2050:A Multi-Criteria, Long Term Optimization Problem with Many Constraints

Today only 13 % of Germany’s energy demand of 2,500 TWh (1 Terawatt for p.a. for living, traffic and electricity is met with renewable energy sources. Total energy costs reach 300 billion Euro per year and imported fossil fuels reach 100 billion Euro per year. Significant parts of renewable power plants, e.g. wind turbines and photovoltaic cells, are also mainly imported, today. For the next decades Germany needs a careful and energy/cost-efficient transformation to a reliable and affordable energy system with a rapidly increasing share of renewable energy sources. Trillion of Euro total investments are necessary to build up renewable energy generation, storage, transformation and transportation. Power plants, vehicles, heater/air conditioner and boiler etc. must be replaced step by step in the next decades. Finance and risk management alternatives are important. Value creation chains and networks and the effects on the German labor market, Germany’s state taxes, Germany’s gross national product, and Germany’s trade balance are interesting, too. For holistic, techno-economic scenario analyses and optimization a multi-criteria, long term simulation and optimization model with many constraints is discussed which forms the basis for an interdisciplinary research project that has already started