From America to Germany - The Race to Climate Neutrality

Germany and Europe are somewhat envious of the massive federal
spending now underway in America to ready the grid and the energy
economy to combat climate change. 


That’s according to Simon Müller who is one of Europe’s leading
thinkers on the future of energy and sustainability. As the
director of the think tank Agora Energiewende, he took time to
explain his views on the Department of Energy’s Grid Talk
Podcast.


“When it comes to the buildout of renewable energies actually
what we see in jurisdictions across the world is that now that
you really have very competitive costs that it doesn’t take that
much political will any more to go for quite large amount of
renewables,” said Müller. 


After the global economic downturn from the Covid pandemic,
Europe has watched the U.S. government put in place a stimulus
package built around investments in clean energy and the electric
power grid. 


“When you look at policymakers in Germany but also in Europe,
they’ve been looking to the United States and the Inflation
Reduction Act with a certain degree of envy. Why? Because it’s
been perceived as being very successful at attracting investments
in technologies that are very promising for the future and that
are very strategic and position the United States on clean energy
technologies.” 


Europe has struggled to match that government support.


“If we want to also play a role as a manufacturing hub going
forward, we have to get our act together to find a response to
that act in the U.S.”


Simon Müller is Director Germany at Agora Energiewende. He leads
Agora's work in Germany on overarching energy and climate policy
issues as well as in the areas of electricity, heat and energy
infrastructure. Müller has advised governments in over 20
countries on six continents and coordinated and authored various
studies on the transition of the power and energy system to
renewable energies.


Müller is an alumnus of the Mercator Followship on International
Affairs and is a member of the advisory board of the DLR
Institute for Networked Energy Systems. He studied in Oldenburg,
Bremen and Berlin (psychology, physics) and holds a M.Sc. in
physics.