Re-Industrialisation and Low-Carbon Economy—Can They Go Together? Results from Stakeholder-Based Scenarios for Energy-Intensive Industries in the German State of North Rhine Westphalia

Stefan Lechtenböhmer,Clemens Schneider,María Yetano Roche,Samuel Höller

doi:10.3390/en81011404

Abstract

The German federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) is home to one of the most important industrial regions in Europe, and is the first German state to have adopted its own Climate Protection Law (CPL). This paper describes the long-term (up to 2050) mitigation scenarios for NRW’s main energy-intensive industrial sub-sectors which served to support the implementation of the CPL. It also describes the process of scenario development, as these scenarios were developed through stakeholder participation. The scenarios considered three different pathways (best-available technologies, break-through technologies, and CO2 capture and storage). All pathways had optimistic assumptions on the rate of industrial growth and availability of low-carbon electricity. We find that a policy of “re-industrialisation” for NRW based on the current industrial structures (assumed here to represent an average growth of NRWs industrial gross value added (GVA) of 1.6% per year until 2030 and 0.6% per year from 2030 to 2050), would pose a significant challenge for the achievement of overall energy demand and German greenhouse gas (GHG) emission targets, in particular as remaining efficiency potentials in NRW are limited. In the best-available technology (BAT) scenario CO2 emission reductions of only 16% are achieved, whereas the low carbon (LC) and the carbon capture and storage (CCS) scenario achieve 50% and 79% reduction respectively. Our results indicate the importance of successful development and implementation of a decarbonised electricity supply and breakthrough technologies in industry—such as electrification, hydrogen-based processes for steel, alternative cements or CCS—if significant growth is to be achieved in combination with climate mitigation. They, however, also show that technological solutions alone, together with unmitigated growth in consumption of material goods, could be insufficient to meet GHG reduction targets in industry.

Highlights

North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), with 18 million inhabitants, is the most populous and densely populated state in Germany
The additional reductions achieved in the low carbon (LC) and carbon capture and storage (CCS) scenario compared to best-available technology (BAT) can be attributed almost completely to the selected five products we described here in depth, which again emphasises the importance of these energy intensive productions for greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation in industry in NRW
This study arose from the political will to design the climate protection plan for the German state of

Summary

Introduction

North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), with 18 million inhabitants, is the most populous and densely populated state in Germany. It generates 22% of the German GDP and 4.6% of the EU-28’s GDP [1]. Around a third of Germany’s primary energy production and of its consumption take place in NRW, and about 40% of the electricity is consumed there, while production is slightly higher, making the state a net electricity exporter [2]. NRW emits about a third of German greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (305 MtCO2eq in 2012) or about 7% of the EU’s GHG emissions, and its total emissions are equivalent to those of Spain [3,4].

Results

Discussion

Conclusion