Fossil resources are becoming ever more scarce. Prices are rising. At the same time, concerns are growing about unhealthy dependency on raw materials from politically unstable regions. More urgent still is the problem of the environment: Carbon dioxide, sulfur oxide, ammoniac, particulate matter and assorted solvents are belched into the Earth's atmosphere every day. A quarter of the world's greenhouse gases are emitted during the process of generating and distributing power. The power utility industry is thus already the second-largest source of these gases (after agriculture and activities to clear additional land for cultivation – for example by slashing and burning forests). Yet population growth and economic expansion will only add to the world's voracious appetite for energy in the coming decades. Especially in developing and emerging countries such as China and India, demand for energy will increase rapidly. Simply extrapolating the trend in energy demand since 2005 to create a global reference scenario for 2030, as the International Energy Agency does, leads to the following projections:

Any development of this magnitude would have a dramatic impact on CO2 emissions, which would rise at a faster rate than energy consump-tion – by 1.6% a year – until 2030. By 2030, harmful emissions would thus stand at 41 gigatons a year – 13 gigatons more than in 2005. Even if a raft of political actions succeeds in reducing the pace of growth in en-ergy consumption in line with the alternative policy scenario formulated by the International Energy Agency, a significant increase remains unavoidable. The challenge is therefore to make power generation more sustainable – and to do so worldwide. We are moving away from nuclear power and fossil fuels toward renewable energies and greater energy efficiency. This structural change is the key to a sustainable, inexpensive and secure energy supply in the future.

To contain the damage caused by climate change, Europe‘s heads of state and government leaders have resolved to reduce CO2 emissions by 30% by the year 2020 and 50% by the year 2050 (compared to 1990 levels), provided that other countries undertake comparable efforts. Regardless of the outcomes of international negotiations and the commitment of other countries, the European Union intends to reduce greenhouse gases to at least 20% below 1990 levels by 2020. To do so, the share of renewable energies will be raised to 20% of total power generation. Concurrently, energy efficiency too will be improved by 20% (relative to the extrapolated status quo if no specific action were taken). Merely charting a political course will not be enough, however. If these goals are truly to be met, existing technologies must be refined and improved. In addition, new technologies must be developed that will help us tap viable alternatives to fossil fuels and avoid or reduce emissions. In recent years, German companies have done pioneering work in this field – and are now increasingly benefiting from global market growth.Players in the lead market for environmentally friendly power generation and storage may adopt widely varying strategies, but they are all pursuing the same three goals: to reduce carbon dioxide emissions; to scale back dependency on fossil fuels; and to make power generation more sustainable. Five areas of technology can be subsumed under this lead market:

• Efficient power plant technologies such as gas and steam power plants, coal-fired power plants with reduced CO2 emissions and co-generation plants that combine the generation of heat and power
• Technologies to reduce the emission of air pollutants during power generation, such as flue gas cleaning plants and CO2 capture and storage technologies for coal-fired power plants
• Renewable energy such as hydropower, solar thermal energy, photovoltaics, wind power, geothermal energy, and biogas and biomass plants
• Energy storage technologies such as compressed air, magnetic, geothermal and hydrogen storage systems
• Hydrogen technologies and fuel cell applications