BERLIN, Sept. 13 (Xinhua) -- More than half of the 258.9 billion kilowatt hours of electricity generated in Germany in the first half of the year (H1) came from conventional sources such as coal, natural gas or nuclear energy, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) said on Monday.
Electricity generation from coal increased by 35.5 percent year-on-year during the period, the highest growth rate among all power sources. Accordingly, coal's share of Germany's electricity mix rose to 27.1 percent in H1, replacing wind power as the country's "main energy source," Destatis said.
In particular, the statistics office said that due to a first quarter with little wind, the share of wind power in the electricity mix fell to 22.1 percent. This represents a decrease of 21.0 percent in the total amount of electricity from this source.
As a result, electricity fed into the grid from all renewable sources declined by 11.7 percent. Only 44 percent of all electricity in Germany came from renewable energies, significantly less than in the first six months of the previous two years.
Germany's Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU) on Monday called for a coal phase-out by 2030 instead of 2038, and to "increase the share of renewable energy to 80 percent." Enditem
