Calculation of the current land use for renewable energy in Germany

The energy revolution in Germany is a nationally and internationally highly acclaimed and debated topic. The phase-out of nuclear energy by the end of 2022 opens the door to enter the age of renewable energy. Energy system of the future should be eco-friendly and secure. Currently, Germany is a pioneer of this global development. The implementation of the energy revolution implicates increased space requirements for renewable energy. Thus, particular areas for wind turbine, biogas plants, open space photovoltaic units, hydroelectric power stations and the technical infrastructure are used. The dynamic expansion of renewable energies in all sectors and the rapid expansion and modernization of power grids will change the characteristic landscape of Germany conspicuously. For this reason in this paper the current land use of renewable energy is analysed. The observation of further development asks for appropriate indications and the necessary data bases. One more focus of this paper is to examine the effects of land use for renewable energy to protected resources and landscape features. As a result the current land use of renewable energy systems is being visualized and analyzed. In concrete terms, a current land use of 180 km2 was observed (up to 2012). Thereof open space photovoltaic units take up 60.2 % and thus the most of the area. If required cultivable acreage for renewable resources for biogas plants are included, the current total land requirement is about 28,000 km2. This represents about 7.8 % of the area of the Federal Republic of Germany. During investigation it became clear, that there are still significant gaps in the data. Therefore the results may underestimate the real situation.