Katherina Reiche on Friday called for the rapid construction of new gas-fired power plants in the country to support the country’s energy supply when renewable sources are unavailable.
By Marco Hadem, dpa
“We need flexible gas-fired power plants that can supply electricity when the wind isn’t blowing and the sun isn’t shining. And we need them quickly,” Germany’s new Economy Minister Katherina Reiche said at the Ludwig Erhard Summit at the Bavarian lake resort Tegernsee.
She said it was important to “quickly move to tender at least 20 gigawatts of gas-fired power plants to maintain energy security.”
Reiche, from Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s conservative Christian Democratic Union, pointed to the recent power outage on the Iberian Peninsula, saying that had demonstrated how important such gas-fired power plants are.
To make this feasible in terms of costs, she said, “long-term gas supply contracts” and a reality check of the energy transition are needed.
She added that it must be clarified whether the expansion in recent years has been ideal “or whether we have overlooked the system risks and system costs in the expansion of renewable energies.”
While she acknowledged that “the expansion of renewable energies has advanced us towards the goal of climate neutrality,” she noted the costs, including those for grid expansion, grid bottlenecks, and for shutting down coal and gas-fired power plants.
“This will be one of my first measures. We need a kind of monitoring and an honest assessment of the state of the energy transition,” she said.
Electricity costs key
To revitalize Germany’s economy, the new government will also address electricity prices, Reiche said.
“We need to lower the electricity tax, we need to reduce the gas storage levy, and we need an industrial electricity price, although I must say that this is a tough nut to crack in Europe,” she stressed.
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The diversity of renewable energies must be utilized, “but we must always keep an eye on the costs.”
No return to nuclear power
Reiche ruled out a return to nuclear energy, which the CDU and its Bavaria sister party, the Christian Social Union had vocally demanded during the election campaign.
“The phase-out has been completed,” she said.
A return would not only require money but also the trust of companies that would need to implement it, which no longer exists.
Additionally, she said, it remains difficult to achieve societal consensus on nuclear energy in Germany.
The opportunity for a return to nuclear power was missed during the energy crisis, and “we have to live with the situation now.”
New free trade agreements
Reiche also stressed the urgent need for new free trade agreements to protect global trade, given Germany’s export-oriented economy.
“This means we need to conclude the relevant free trade agreements with Chile, Mercosur, India, Australia and Mexico. And I explicitly say, we also need the United States of America,” Reiche said.