Companies are willing to pay higher costs for green power

2 min read

A study on the ener­gy tran­si­tion in 2024, con­duct­ed by wat­tline, pro­vides insight­ful insights into the atti­tudes and behav­iors of the Ger­man pop­u­la­tion regard­ing the ener­gy tran­si­tion. The rep­re­sen­ta­tive sur­vey, based on a sam­ple of 1,111 peo­ple, includ­ing 672 employ­ees and 328 exec­u­tives, exam­ines key aspects such as the will­ing­ness to use green ener­gy and the great­est oppor­tu­ni­ties and risks asso­ci­at­ed with the ener­gy tran­si­tion.

Assessment of electricity costs by companies

Accord­ing to the study, 67% of exec­u­tives con­sid­er ener­gy costs an impor­tant fac­tor in their busi­ness deci­sions. For many com­pa­nies, elec­tric­i­ty costs rep­re­sent a sig­nif­i­cant finan­cial bur­den that can lim­it their scope for action.

Willingness to switch to green electricity

The major­i­ty of exec­u­tives (71%) also state that they are will­ing to incur addi­tion­al costs to switch to sus­tain­able ener­gy sources. This shows a clear will­ing­ness to invest in green ener­gy, pro­vid­ed the con­di­tions are right. Despite this pos­i­tive atti­tude, many com­pa­nies do not yet use green elec­tric­i­ty today.

Reasons why companies have not yet switched to green electricity

A cen­tral rea­son why many com­pa­nies have not yet switched to green elec­tric­i­ty is the high cost. 70% of respon­dents see this as the great­est risk of the ener­gy tran­si­tion. For 53% of exec­u­tives, finan­cial resources are the biggest chal­lenge in imple­ment­ing the ener­gy tran­si­tion in their com­pa­nies. Addi­tion­al­ly, lack of infras­truc­ture and com­pli­cat­ed bureau­cra­cy play a role in mak­ing the switch dif­fi­cult.

Willingness to pay more for green electricity

Despite finan­cial chal­lenges, the study also shows that many com­pa­nies are will­ing to bear high­er costs to use sus­tain­able ener­gy sources. 71% of exec­u­tives indi­cate they are will­ing to accept addi­tion­al costs for switch­ing to green ener­gy, with younger deci­sion-mak­ers (18–39 years) being par­tic­u­lar­ly open-mind­ed. How­ev­er, many com­pa­nies would wel­come gov­ern­ment sup­port to facil­i­tate the tran­si­tion. 55% of com­pa­nies desire finan­cial assis­tance to cope with the high­er costs of green ener­gy.

Over­all, the results show that com­pa­nies are quite will­ing to invest in sus­tain­able elec­tric­i­ty but are often hin­dered by finan­cial bar­ri­ers and struc­tur­al prob­lems. Sim­pli­fi­ca­tion and stan­dard­iza­tion of Pow­er Pur­chase Agree­ments (PPA) would help over­come at least some tech­ni­cal and struc­tur­al hur­dles.

Source: Wat­tline Studie zur Energiewende 2024