Katherina Reiche: “Our industry is bleeding dry. Deindustrialization is accelerating” | EUROtoday

Federal Minister of Economics Katherina Reiche (CDU) is looking for a elementary change in vitality coverage and warns in opposition to overtaxing the economic system and shoppers. In a visitor article for the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” she writes that Germany is experiencing “one of the most serious energy crises in history”.

Since the beginning of the Iran conflict, costs for oil, liquid fuel and diesel have risen sharply. This places a pressure on shoppers and firms and prices Germany financial progress.

The minister objects to the concept that the issues will be solved by increasing wind and photo voltaic vitality: “Well, it’s not that simple,” she writes. Germany solely covers virtually a fifth of its whole vitality consumption with renewable energies. Reiche criticizes that the nation has calmed itself down with bold targets for years. “80 percent of electricity from renewables by 2030, climate neutrality by 2045.” These are good numbers that soothe your responsible conscience. “But while we clung to these goals, electricity prices exploded.”

Wind and photo voltaic “did not send any invoices”. “But the entire system does,” she writes. EEG prices, capability reserves, community reserves, redispatch prices, community subsidies and different help added as much as system prices of “over 36 billion euros per year”. “That’s 430 euros for every German,” Reiche calculates in her article. By 2035, system prices will rise to 90 billion euros per yr.

The result’s excessive electrical energy prices. German households paid as much as 37 cents per kilowatt hour – a great 9 cents above the EU common. “Our industry is bleeding dry. Deindustrialization is accelerating,” writes Reiche.

Billions in order that no electrical energy is produced

The minister can also be aggravated in regards to the compensation for curtailed programs: “We pay almost three billion euros just for wind turbines and solar systems to be curtailed because the networks cannot absorb the electricity,” she writes. “There is no other industry that receives guaranteed funding for 20 years and collects compensation even when their product is not needed.”

The minister is subsequently calling for extra accountability from the trade. “This cannot continue like this,” she writes. The renewables trade has “grown up and must now take responsibility – systemically and financially.” The truth has been hidden for too lengthy: “An energy transition that ignores system costs will ruin the country it purports to save.”

Reiche is sticking to the enlargement goal for renewable energies. “The 80 percent expansion target for renewables remains,” she writes. “The connection priority for renewables also remains.” A grid connection bundle is deliberate that redistributes accountability. Anyone who desires to attach a system in overloaded grid areas should contribute to the prices or bear the danger that electrical energy can’t at all times be fed in. “Electricity that has to be curtailed due to grid overload may no longer be paid for by the general public,” writes Reiche. “This is not a blockade. This is a fair distribution of the burden.”

The minister is essentially dedicated to the vitality transition. Renewables would “be the backbone of our electricity supply”. At the identical time, she emphasizes: “I’m also a realist.” Climate safety with out affordability just isn’t politically viable.

Reiche promotes secured energy plant capacities, storage and a brand new market design. “We need a capacity market that is open to technology,” she writes. In addition, extra direct buy contracts between producers and consumers are obligatory. At the identical time, the minister is sticking to fuel as a part of the vitality provide. “Even if we would like it to be different, we still need gas,” she writes. That is why Germany is concluding long-term provide contracts with the USA, Canada, Angola and Mexico.

In her personal phrases, the minister additionally depends on improvements akin to vitality storage, vitality effectivity, CO₂ seize and fusion energy crops. She additionally factors to new developments in nuclear know-how. “New reactors are smaller, modular and safer,” she writes. 16 EU member states have already collectively invested on this space. Finally, Reiche known as for a choice on the course. Germany “must choose between serious politics and self-deception,” she writes.