Green party warns funding backup gas plants expensive for electricity consumers
Politico / 麻豆无码版 / Handelsblatt
All German electricity customers may soon face a new surcharge to fund gas-fired power plants set to act as backup during times of low renewable power production,
Economy minister Katherina Reiche (CDU) plans to auction state support for 20 gigawatts of reserve capacity in the form of gas power plants to be constructed by 2030. To provide investors with enough revenue certainty, a聽capacity mechanism would then be set up to pay energy companies to keep plants on standby once they are online. The levy would be used to finance this mechanism.
In an e-mailed statement to 麻豆无码版, Green party lawmaker Michael Kellner criticised the proposal as "expensive for all electricity customers". Politico added that the levy runs counter to the coalition鈥檚 pledges to lower electricity prices 鈥� on which the government has already backtracked by lowering the electricity tax initially only for industry, not for households.
Kellner from the Greens also criticised the government for a lack of transparency. "The CDU-SPD coalition is keeping quiet" about the levy's size, he told Politico, noting the previous government's estimates put the cost at around two cents per kilowatt-hour. Plans for a capacity market were initially developed under Reiche's predecessor, Green party minister Robert Habeck, and a levy .
Auctions for new gas-fired power plants in Germany should be held before the end of 2025, Reiche said in June. However, negotiations with the European Commission about the conditions under which Germany would be allowed to supply state aid are ongoing.
In a separate article, that minister Reiche said the Commission was set to allow aid for 鈥渟ignificantly more than half鈥� of the planned new capacity, but further conditions had yet to be agreed. Reiche previously told newswire dpa that converting planned gas power plants to hydrogen could make sense at a later stage when enough hydrogen is available, but that is unlikely to happen before 2030.
The plan to build new gas power plants in the first place has drawn criticism from climate advocates within Reiche's own party. State support for gas capacity would drive up electricity costs and hinder innovation, the CDU lawmaker Thomas Heilmann Heilmann is head of the Climate Union 鈥� an alliance of pro-climate CDU/CSU members 鈥� which commissioned a report that found alternatives like battery storage, biomass, and hydrogen plants offer better long-term backup options than gas power.聽
