SPD on climate and energy

The SPD wants to first stabilize the fees for the long-distance power grid and then cap them at 3 cents per kilowatt-hour. This is meant to halve the average burden on households and businesses and provide planning certainty.

Everyone pays a fee for the big power grid. The SPD wants to limit this fee. It should be 3 cents per kilowatt-hour at most. Then power gets cheaper for homes and companies.

The platform justifies the cap with the billions needed for grid expansion, which are currently added to the electricity price. It says high grid fees are a particular problem in the north and east, where much wind power is produced. The cap is meant to ease industrial investment and make switching to electric cars and heat pumps cheaper. Overall, the SPD aims for stable, internationally competitive energy prices.

The SPD wants more electricity-intensive companies to get relief on grid fees and through electricity price compensation. The reduced electricity tax is to become permanent.

Some companies need a lot of power. The SPD wants more of them to pay less for it. The tax on power is lower right now. That should stay that way for good.

A wider group of especially power-hungry firms is to receive reduced grid fees; large consumers that cannot shift their demand flexibly are to keep their relief. The federal government would press the EU Commission to let more sectors receive electricity price compensation, such as glass processing, large parts of the chemical industry and battery cell production. The electricity tax is to stay at the lowest rate allowed in the EU with no end date.

The SPD is betting on electrification and hydrogen in industry. It wants to create lead markets for green steel made in Germany with fixed purchase quotas, and to build a hydrogen network and storage.

Industry should become climate-friendly. For that it needs hydrogen. The SPD wants to build a network and storage for hydrogen. Green steel from Germany should have guaranteed buyers. For example, the railway should use a fixed share of it.

Fixed shares of green steel would apply, for example, to the railway or to offshore converter platforms. Storage is to be built, among other things, as a national hydrogen reserve. The SPD supports the European Clean Industrial Deal and pursues a European-anchored industrial strategy meant to link climate protection with competitiveness. To secure jobs in crises, it would continue to take temporary stakes in companies when needed.

The SPD wants climate policy to rely more on collective solutions such as heating networks and to treat climate neutrality as part of public services. Subsidies would go mainly to people who could not otherwise afford to switch.

The SPD wants everyone to be able to afford climate action. The state should build shared solutions, such as heating networks. A heating network heats many houses at once. Money from the state should go mainly to poorer people.

The platform regards heating networks for whole neighborhoods as more efficient and cheaper than individual heat pumps. The federal government, states and municipalities would take on new tasks. Municipalities would get more financial room, including through the Deutschlandfonds and a reform of the debt brake for the states. Local heat plans would be supported with funding and technical help. Where shared infrastructure is not enough, targeted subsidies would apply.

The SPD commits to Germany's and the EU's climate targets and to the European Green Deal. It does not want to weaken rules already adopted, partly because in its view businesses need planning certainty.

The SPD wants to keep the climate targets. That applies to Germany and to Europe. It does not want to loosen rules already agreed. Companies should be able to rely on them.

Global warming is to stay well below two degrees and, if possible, be brought onto the 1.5-degree path. The Green Deal is meant to make Europe the first climate-neutral continent. The SPD wants to implement laws already passed. Germany's pioneering role is to become an advantage for the country as a business location.

The SPD sees the carbon price for households and small businesses only as a supplementary tool. Once the European scheme applies from 2027, measures such as a Klimageld (climate payment) are meant to keep people from being financially overburdened.

Anyone who emits CO2 has to pay for it. That makes heating and fuel more expensive. The SPD wants to protect people from paying too much. One example is a climate payment. That is money the state pays to citizens.

The legally set price per ton of 55 euros in 2025 and at most 65 euros in 2026 is to remain in place. The European scheme takes effect from 2027. At that point the SPD wants to take countermeasures nationally and at EU level. The platform justifies this with households that are hit especially hard and cannot switch on their own.

The SPD wants to keep expanding wind power, solar energy and storage and make sure the low generation costs reach consumers. This includes stable grid fees, price oversight for district heating and help for poorer households.

Electricity from wind and sun is cheap. The SPD wants more of it. The cost of the power grid should not keep rising. The state should check prices for district heating. Poorer households should be able to rent a heat pump.

Grid fees are not to rise further. The Strom-Spar-Check, an energy-saving advice service that visits homes, would be offered nationwide and permanently for the poorest households. Rental models for heating, a social heat pump leasing scheme, are planned for poorer households. A nationwide authority would oversee district heating prices. Decentralized energy supply, from balcony solar units to community wind farms, would be made simpler (energy sharing).

The SPD wants an urban development funding program that helps municipalities adapt to climate change. Cities are to become greener and more resilient to heat.

Cities get very hot in summer. The SPD wants to give cities money. They should use it to create more green spaces and water. This is meant to make cities cooler.

Funding would go to greening and unsealing surfaces along the lines of the sponge city concept, in which the ground absorbs rainwater. Cooling public spaces and more water areas are also included. The platform says this is meant to secure quality of life in cities.

The SPD wants above all to avoid greenhouse gases rather than capture CO2 afterward. It considers the nuclear phase-out right and wants to speed up the search for a final repository.

The SPD wants fewer greenhouse gases to be produced. For that, wind and solar power should grow faster. The nuclear plants stay off. Nuclear waste needs a safe storage site. The search for it should go faster.

As means, the platform names a faster expansion of renewables, efficient energy use, a climate-neutral industry and more circular economy. Avoiding CO2 is to take priority over capturing it. The SPD views the shutdown of the nuclear plants positively. It wants to support and speed up the repository search without compromising on safety.

The SPD wants to implement the Paris Climate Agreement and provide a fair German contribution to international climate finance. It points out that the poorest countries are often hit hardest by climate change and are the least prepared.

Climate change hits poor countries especially hard. The SPD wants to help these countries. Germany should provide money for this. Private funders should join in too. Germany should work with other countries on climate protection.

Besides public money, the SPD wants to attract more private funds for the global climate transition. As instruments, the platform names the Just Energy Transition Partnerships and climate and development partnerships with countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Unions and civil society are to be involved more closely. For climate adaptation, the SPD calls for worldwide initiatives based on solidarity. The international Climate Club is to be complemented by further formats of cooperation.