News Digest Item
05 Jan 2018

High costs warrant a “restart” of Germany’s Energiewende – opinion

Handelsblatt

Germany’s energy transition needs a “restart” as many companies struggle to cope with the additional financial burden in the form of surcharges, levies and other costs put on every kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity, Klaus Stratmann writes in an op-ed for the Handelsblatt. Producing one kWh of electricity in a power plant might cost about 3 cents, but the additional financial burden brings the price for household consumers up to around 30 cents, Stratmann says. Most companies do not benefit from so-called industry rebates and are faced with power prices “which their competitors in neighbouring countries like the Czech Republic or France so far have not even encountered in their nightmares,” he argues. “The Energiewende cannot be funded permanently by burdening the power price without any limitation,” Stratmann says, calling for a “system change” initiated by the next government, “which is centred on a price for CO2.”

Read the op-ed in German here (paywall).

For background, read the CLEW factsheets Germany ponders how to finance renewables expansion in the future and Industrial power prices and the Energiewende.

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