For historical reasons, Germans very seldom admit they are proud of something – maybe with the exception of washing machines and combustion engines.

They can be rightfully proud of their Renewable Energies Act (EEG), which has just turned 20 – but now faces possibly its biggest challenge to meet vast future demand for green hydrogen production.

The EEG and its feed-in tariffs (FITs) – which at first were fixed and later determined by competitive tenders – pushed the share of renewables in the energy mix of Europe’s largest economy up from about 6% in 2000 to 52% of power consumption in the first quarter of this year.