Europe wants to be climate-neutral by 2050 and Germany already by 2045, but the interim targets for 2030 (-65%) and 2040 are even more ambitious and the targets need to be tightened further to keep global warming within manageable limits. To achieve this, electricity production worldwide is being massively converted to renewable energies. This goes hand in hand with a fundamental change in the energy system. Where fossil fuels have primarily been burnt for high- and low-temperature heat up to now, where combustion engines have been used to generate energy and power and gas and steam turbines have been used to generate electricity, electricity is now available as a primary energy source. The most efficient utilisation is therefore achieved when electricity can be used directly. However, large quantities of substitutes for oil and natural gas are also needed for applications in industry, aviation and shipping and also as a back-up in the power supply, either for energy purposes or as a raw material. Here, hydrocarbons must be synthesised using hydrogen production from electricity as a starting point. This will require completely new distribution and transport infrastructures in some cases, but in particular a global market must be developed with new players, new trade routes and new strategies for domestic production and imports from countries with high potential for renewable energies. Against this background, the status of the transformation, the difficulties and bottlenecks and the challenges at a technical, economic and political level will be discussed.