In the media: Tourists and wind turbines, municipal utilities and power exports

Dow Jones Newswires

“Renewable development leads to uncertainty for municipal utilities”

Dow Jones reports on a study by the University of Leipzig for Commerzbank and the municipal utility Stadtwerke Leipzig, looking at the challenges posed by the energy transition for public sector utilities. The article quotes the study’s author as saying that municipal utilities are “under pressure” from factors including the investment needed in grid infrastructure, and market conditions that make it difficult for more efficient power plants, such as gas-fired facilities, to cover their costs.

Download the study in German here.

Hamburger Abendblatt

“Do wind turbines at sea put off Tourists?”

Joachim Mangler and Olaf Preuß report on the opposition that new wind parks face in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, a structurally weak state on the German Baltic coast. While the state’s energy minister calles wind power development a “job generator” and “growth motor” the members of citizen protest group “Free Horizon” say that windparks built six kilometres offshore would harm tourism and that constantly moving wind mills “make people ill”, the authors write. An official from the wind energy network Mecklenburg Vorpommern said the concerns were ill-founded and no tourist had ever left because of existing wind parks on the Baltic coast.

See the article in German here.

See the Clean Energy Wire's report on tourism and the Energiewende here.

Renewables International

“The underreported change in German law”

Writing for Renewables International, Craig Morris looks at the implications of a change in the wording of renewable energy legislation, which now specifies that targets for the growth of renewables are linked to Germany’s power consumption – previously the law had referred more generally to “power supply.” Morris says this is significant given that German power exports are on the rise.

See the article in English here.

Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ)

“German energy transition is stuck in a dead end”

In an opinion piece for the NZZ, Dietrich Böcker and Dietrich Welte say that Germany’s energy transition suffers from high power prices and a focus on the power sector. While the country’s greenhouse gas emissions have fallen since 1990, China’s emissions have risen massively. Instead of turning its power system into a planned economy, Germany should invest in energy-saving and efficiency measures and put more emphasis on the transport sector, the authors suggest. CO2 emission reductions should be tackled only on an international level, through trading schemes, Böcker and Welte write. They also question whether anthropogenic CO2 emissions are really the main cause of global warming.

See the op-ed in German here.