Grid fee alignment: “We will try to find a solution” – Merkel

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that federal and state governments were “trying to find a solution” in the dispute about nationwide grid fee alignment. “At the moment, a difficult battle is raging on how we best succeed in managing this surcharge generally – for Germany as a whole, so to speak. The draft law is in the German Bundestag [federal parliament]. We now have two plenary weeks left to think about a solution,” said Merkel at general meeting of the Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry for Northern Germany. She said that it was difficult to introduce a solution overnight, because energy intensive companies, for example in North-Rhine Westphalia, would be faced with “significantly higher power costs”.
The grand coalition’s (CDU/CSU, SPD) federal cabinet had introduced a draft for a grid fee reform in January without provisions to standardise fees, because of the state elections in North Rhine Westphalia. After the elections, Social Democrat energy politician and member of the Bundestag Hubertus Heil told news agency Dow Jones that his party wants a nationwide alignment.

For background, read the CLEW factsheets Power grid fees – Unfair and opaque? and From ideas to laws – how Energiewende policy is shaped.