Emissions balance of renewable energy sources. Determination of avoided emissions in 2020

The results for 2020 presented in this report show that the expansion of renewable energies is making a significant contribution to achieving the climate protection targets in Germany. Overall, fossil energy sources are increasingly being replaced by renewable energies in all consumption sectors, thus permanently avoiding greenhouse gas and air pollutant emissions. Furthermore, the results show that a differentiated consideration of different technologies and sectors is useful and necessary, e.g. when it comes to deriving targeted measures for climate protection and air pollution control, since the specific abatement factors for the greenhouse gases and air pollutants investigated differ considerably in some cases. As a result, the net emissions balance of renewable energy, taking into account upstream chains, shows an avoidance of greenhouse gas emissions of about 230 million tons of CO${}_2$-equivalents (CO${}_2$-eq.) in 2020. The electricity sector accounted for 179 million t CO${}_2$-eq, of which 157 million t are attributable to the amount of electricity eligible for EEG compensation. The heat sector avoided 41 million t and biogenic fuels avoided 11 million t CO${}_2$-eq.