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Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control (BAFA), EBV, and supply experts from the oil industry and trade enterprises.

Within the federal government, the BMWi has the lead responsibility for contingency planning and emergency measures, including the release of stocks by the EBV. Industry players collaborate with NESO’s Supply Co-ordination Group (KGV) and the Crisis Supply Council (KVR). KGV is mainly responsible for analysing the domestic supply situation and proposing solutions during a crisis while KVR serves as a political adviser to BMWi for implementing emergency measures such as stock releases and other demand restraint measures. KVR also serves as a platform to communicate with business associations. In terms of structure, KGV consists of eight permanent members (five refiners, two traders and a representative of the tank farm industry) and their deputies; KVR consists of the chairman of EBV’s supervisory board, his deputy and the chairman of the KGV.

In the event of a crisis, BMWi activates the NESO followed by the convention of KVR, and KGV if necessary. During a non-emergency period, the NESO office co-ordinates regular emergency response exercises that involve BMWi, BAFA, EBV and KGV. As part of the federal and state-level crisis management that concern Germany’s critical infrastructure such as energy and communication technology, a nationwide inter-ministerial and interstate civil emergency exercise (LÜKEX) generally takes place every other year.

Emergency response policy

Germany’s oil emergency response policies are underpinned by three key pieces of legislation.

The Oil Stockholding Act (Erdölbevorratungsgesetz) regulates the stockholding of oil and refined products to respond to national and international crises. The act also established the German Stockpiling Agency EBV in 1978, which holds the 90-day stockholding obligation, and set relevant rules on stock releases and reporting.

The 1975 Energy Security of Supply Act (Energiesicherungsgesetz) is the legal basis for Germany’s demand restraint measures and other regulatory interventions in the oil market. It also provides a reference to German NESO’s joint structure based on co-operation; according to Article 8, government authorities can rely on associations (e.g. industry associations) if they agree to participate.

The Oil Data Act (Mineralöldatengesetz) concerns data collection for the implementation of the 1975 Energy Security of Supply Act, regulating how data are collected in line with the IEA International Energy Programme (IEP) and the European Union’s rules on information systems and emergency measures in the oil sector. Based on this act, oil trading companies are required to submit data on oil imports and exports, stocks, and the domestic sale of crude oil and refined products to BAFA on a monthly basis in order to monitor the country’s oil market supply and prepare for potential oil supply disruptions.

Emergency oil reserves

EBV is tasked with holding emergency stocks of crude oil and oil products at a level that corresponds to at least 90 days of net imports. There are no further stockholding obligations on industry; however, all refiners and oil product importers are obliged to be members of EBV, whose operations are funded by membership fees. BAFA monitors the

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in implementation. The lead time for this whole process is approximately two to three weeks with the exception of transport fuel rationing, which would require a considerably longer period to become operational. In defined crisis situations, the Act on Safeguarding Transport Services allows for a requisition of additional transport services from private companies to allocate oil products according to priority needs.

In addition to BMWi’s study on volumetric oil savings from various demand restraint measures, the Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance (BBK) conducted a study to identify the priority services for fuel allocation in emergencies in 2018, which include electricity supply, gas supply, fuel and heating oil supply, and district heating supply (BBK, 2018).

When demand restraint measures are activated, their effectiveness – in terms of volumetric savings – are monitored via the oil industry’s monthly statistics reports.

Assessment

Despite the Energiewende, Germany remains heavily dependent fossil fuels, and oil is still the most dominant source of energy, providing almost one-third of TPES in 2018. Germany has a small domestic crude oil production that has been declining with its major oil reserves depleting over the last decade, making the country a heavy importer of oil. In 2018, Germany’s total oil net imports were 2 104 kb/d, which is 12% down from a decade ago. This is largely thanks to a decrease in crude oil imports, which dropped by 19% to 1 720 kb/d, while net imports of oil products increased by almost 70% to 384 kb/d. Russia remains the biggest importer of crude oil to Germany, and increasingly so for oil products. Former Soviet Union countries such as Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are also among the main oil importers to Germany. Other than Russia, European countries, predominantly the Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Austria, are primary trading partner countries. A notable new development is crude oil imports from the United States since 2015, which jumped from almost zero to 79 kb/d in 2018.

The country’s oil demand has been stable at an average of 2 416 kb/d for the last ten years. The transport sector remains the largest oil-consuming sector, accounting for more than half of the total oil consumption, and its share has been growing with demand for diesel going up over the last decade. Thanks to increasingly competitive renewable energies, oil consumption for power generation is almost phased out and that for heat is falling. However, the transport sector remains a big challenge for Germany. To promote the transport sector’s low-carbon transition, the government has been providing various financial supports to switch to alternative fuels. The environmental bonus scheme for electric cars and the federal government’s subsidy on low-carbon fuels such as CNG and hydrogen and their charging stations have all contributed to the recent growth of Germany’s EV market.

To further accelerate decarbonisation of the transport sector, the current fuel tax system can be improved. Transport fuels are heavily taxed but given Germany’s historical focus on dieselisation, the tax rate on diesel is still considerably lower than that on gasoline. To fully capture the cost of local air pollution from diesel consumption and encourage a switch to low-carbon fuels, the differential tax rates on fuels can be recalibrated. In a similar vein, Germany’s current level of tax on heating oil (light fuel oil) does not give much support on decarbonising the heating sector.

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References

BBK (Federal Office of Civil Protection and Disaster Assistance) (2018), “Protecting critical infrastructures – a seven step identification process: Guidance tool for use in civil protection”, www.bbk.bund.de/SharedDocs/Downloads/BBK/EN/ProtectingCriticalInfrastructures.pdf?__ blob=publicationFile.

BMWi (Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy) (2019), Petroleum and Motor Fuels, www.bmwi.de/Redaktion/EN/Textsammlungen/Energy/petroleum-and-motor- fuels.html.

EBV (Erdölbevorratungsverband) (2019a), “Strategic stockpiling of oil in Germany”, www.ebv-oil.org/cmse/pdf/ebv_information_brochure_dba.pdf.

EBV (2019b), “Cavern storage”, www.ebv-oil.org/cmse/cms2.asp?sid=92&nid=&cof=60.

Eckert, V. (2019), “Germany has enough supply to cope with Russian oil pipeline halt”, Reuters, 25 April 2019, www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-oil-pipeline/germany-has- enough-supply-to-cope-with-russian-oil-pipeline-halt-idUSKCN1S11AE.

IEA (2019a), World Energy Balances 2019, IEA, Paris, www.iea.org/statistics/. IEA (2019b), Oil Information 2019, IEA, Paris, www.iea.org/statistics/.

IEA (2019c), Global EV Outlook 2019: Scaling Up the Transition to Electric Mobility, IEA, Paris, www.iea.org/publications/reports/globalevoutlook2019/.

IEA (International Energy Agency) (2018), Energy Prices and Taxes 2018, second quarter, IEA, Paris, www.iea.org/statistics/.

NWO (Nord-West Oelleitung) (2019), “Facts and figures”, www.nwowhv.de/c/index.php/en/company/facts-and-figures.

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plants, waste management, nuclear safety and waste management research, and nuclear non-power applications.

Industry structure

As of 2017, Germany had an installed nuclear power capacity of 10.8 GW (seven reactors), producing 76.3 TWh (11.8% of Germany’s electricity share). Compared with 2007 values, this represents a reduction of 46%. Since the Fukushima accident in 2011, nine reactors have been decommissioned (9.7 GW), eight of them immediately after the enactment of the 13th Amendment of the Atomic Energy Act in August 2011.

Four companies are in charge of the operation of the remaining nuclear fleet: E.ON (since 2016, through its subsidiary PreussenElektra), RWE, Vattenfall and EnBW. All NPPs are privately owned (Table 11.1).

Following the Fukushima events, the Reactor Safety Commission (RSK) evaluated the safety of the 17 operating reactors at the time and concluded that compared with the Fukushima Daiichi NPP, the level of safety of German plants was sufficiently robust to face loss of external electricity supply and flooding events. Further robustness tests revealed that no uniform findings could be established based on the initial plant design or age. Those plants with initially lesser design requirements were upgraded with partly autonomous emergency systems to ensure vital safety functions (IAEA, 2019a). European Nuclear Safety Regulators Groups (ENSREG) workshops conducted in 2013 and 2015 yielded similar conclusions (ENSREG, 2015). Recently, an International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) mission found that Germany had strong practices and processes in place to ensure comprehensive regulatory oversight. Opportunities for further enhancement were identified in the field of decontamination and decommissioning (D&D), activities that should intensify in the coming years (IAEA, 2019b).

The Atomic Energy Act stipulates that German NPPs must perform periodic safety reviews every ten years following the national Nuclear Safety Standards Commission (KTA) standards. Before 2022, only two plants will conduct a comprehensive safety assessment: Gundremmingen C and Brokdorf.

Besides the NPPs, there are seven research reactors and three other nuclear facilities in operation in Germany (Figure 11.4). They are part of the research and industrial capabilities developed in the nuclear field over the last decades:

nuclear fuel production facility for light water reactors in Lingen

enrichment facility by centrifugation in Gronau

nuclear waste conditioning facility in Gorleben.

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Nuclear phase-out

After the 1998 elections, the German government concluded an agreement with the main German utilities to phase out the use of nuclear energy for the commercial generation of electricity. The Atomic Energy Act was amended accordingly in 2002. As a result, the construction of new nuclear plants was forbidden and residual electricity production volumes were allocated among the remaining NPPs according to a maximum lifetime of 32 years. Two plants were shut down, in 2003 (Stade) and 2005 (Obrigheim).

The new elected German government in 2009 decided to support the role of nuclear energy as a “bridging technology” towards a low-carbon future. In December 2010, by means of the 11th Act Amending the Atomic Energy Act, the government granted lifetime extensions to the 17 nuclear reactors (8 years to 7 reactors and 14 years to 10 reactors) in operation at the time. The lifetime extensions were converted into electricity volumes for each plant. Additionally, a nuclear fuel tax was imposed. Between January 2011 and December 2016, nuclear operators paid a EUR 145 levy for every gramme of fissile material used in their reactors.

The Fukushima accident in March 2011 represented a new shift in German energy policy with regard to nuclear power. Supported by the RSK and in close collaboration with the states (Länder), the safety of all German NPPs was reviewed. Also, through an Ethics Commission on Secure Energy Supply, a dialogue was established with the public on the risks involved in the use of nuclear power and the possibility to accelerate the energy transition with greater reliance on renewable energy. Taking into account the assessments of the RSK and following the Ethics Commission on Secure Energy Supply, the government decided to accelerate the phase-out of nuclear power. The 13th Amendment of the Atomic Energy Act was enacted in August 2011. This new amendment revoked the lifetime extension and residual electricity volumes introduced by the 11th Amendment. Eight reactors (Neckarwestheim 1, Phillipsburg 1, Biblis A and B, Isar 1, Unterweser, Brunsbüttel and Krümmel) lost their operating licences with immediate effect, and remaining nuclear capacity should be phased out by the end of 2022 at the latest (see Table 11.1 for a detailed closure calendar). According to a survey published by the Institute of Advanced Sustainability Studies in 2017, the nuclear phase-out decision still receives 68% of support among the German population (IASS, 2017).

The accelerated nuclear exit was also the beginning of a series of legal procedures between nuclear operators and the German government. The utilities claim around EUR 20 billion (Deutsche Welle, 2016) in compensation for the losses incurred that have, in some cases, been granted by the German cabinet (Deutsche Welle, 2018).

Furthermore, in 2017, the Federal Constitutional Court declared the nuclear fuel tax introduced by the 11th Amendment of the Atomic Energy Act unconstitutional. In consequence, the German government has to reimburse up to EUR 6.3 billion to the nuclear operators, the equivalent of taxes paid between 2011 and 2016 plus interest (Deutsche Welle, 2017).

Additional lawsuits related to nuclear waste management issues have also been reported (Appunn, 2015). The agreement reached between the operators and the federal government through the Act on the Reorganisation of Responsibility in Nuclear Waste Management has led to the cancellation of several of these legal procedures (IAEA, 2018).

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