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The Nuclear Agreement and Its Price

On 14 June 2000, the federal government and the energy companies agreed on ending nuclear power in Germany. The agreement is known as the Atomkonsens, the nuclear consensus. It was signed on 11 June 2001, and in 2002 it was secured in law. In 2010, a new government extended the running times of the plants. This became known as the Ausstieg aus dem Ausstieg, the exit from the exit. After the Fukushima disaster in March 2011, the government reversed course again. On 6 December 2016, the Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the new law was largely compatible with the Basic Law. But the companies had to be compensated. The court said that trust in the electricity quantities granted in 2002 deserved particular protection. Investments made in justified trust in the 2010 extension also had to be compensated. In 2021, the government and the four companies signed a contract. The companies received 2.428 billion euros, and in return they ended all lawsuits over the phase-out.

The state was free to change the agreement. The court made it pay for what the companies had relied on.

Fair Discretion

Billiges Ermessen, fair discretion. Section 315 of the German Civil Code covers contracts in which one side sets the price or the performance alone. The law presumes that this side must decide with fair discretion. If its decision is not fair, it does not bind the other side, and a court sets the performance instead. For households, this matters most with gas and electricity. A customer can ask a court to declare a price increase unfair. In a leading case of 13 June 2007, the Federal Court of Justice reviewed a gas price increase under this rule. It found the increase fair, because it only passed on higher purchase costs.

The review has a limit. A price that both sides agreed on is not reviewed. The rule applies only to a price that one side sets alone.

No Miner Fell Into Nothing

In February 2007, the federal government, the coal-mining states, the company RAG and the miners’ union agreed to end subsidized hard coal mining in Germany by the end of 2018, in a socially acceptable way. A law of 2008 put the agreement into effect. On 21 December 2018, the Prosper-Haniel mine in Bottrop closed in an official ceremony. It was the end of hard coal mining in Germany. In the 20 years before, the mining company RAG had cut more than 80,000 jobs. In June 2019, Bärbel Bergerhoff-Wodopia of the RAG Foundation said that every one of them had been cut in a socially acceptable way: Kein Bergmann ist ins Bergfreie gefallen. No miner fell into the unclaimed ground, that is, into nothing. About 200 employees refused every solution offered to them. RAG dismissed them.

The Chancellor Uses His Directive Power

In October 2022, the Greens and the FDP in Olaf Scholz’s government disagreed on how long Germany’s last three nuclear plants should run. On 17 October, Scholz settled it in a letter. He invoked his Richtlinienkompetenz, the chancellor’s power to set the guidelines of policy, under § 1 of the federal government’s rules of procedure. He instructed the ministers Habeck, Lemke and Lindner to draft the laws needed to keep Isar 2, Neckarwestheim 2 and Emsland running until 15 April 2023 at the latest. A journalist said on Swiss radio that day: Es ist tatsächlich ungewöhnlich, in Deutschland als Kanzler die Richtlinienkompetenz zu ziehen. It is indeed unusual in Germany for a chancellor to use the directive power.

The Coal Commission

In June 2018, the federal government set up a commission on growth, structural change and employment. Germans called it the Kohlekommission, the coal commission. Its job was to work out how Germany would end coal power. Its 28 voting members included unions, industry associations, environmental groups, scientists and people from the mining regions, among them the mayor of Spremberg in Lusatia. On 26 January 2019, it presented its report. The last coal plant was to close in 2038, and the regions were to receive 40 billion euros in aid over twenty years. Twenty-seven of the 28 members voted for it. The one vote against came from a representative of Lusatian residents affected by open-cast mining, because the report did not protect the village of Proschim from being cleared. Parliament turned the plan into law in 2020.

The New Germany Pace

On 17 December 2022, Chancellor Olaf Scholz spoke at the opening of the first LNG terminal, in Wilhelmshaven. It had taken fewer than 200 days from planning to operation. Scholz called this das neue Deutschland-Tempo, the new Germany pace. He added: Das ist neuer Weltrekord. “That is a new world record.”

Combined heat and power

Kraft-Wärme-Kopplung. Combined heat and power. German plants capture the heat that electricity generation would otherwise waste and pipe it into district heating networks. The waste from one process is the input to another, by design.

The three stages of Germany’s emergency gas plan

Reuters. June 2022. Germany triggered stage one of its emergency gas plan in March after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked an energy crisis in Europe, but the German gas market regulator said on Tuesday it was not yet time to move to the highest stage.

Germany’s emergency gas plan explained

The cut in Russian gas supplies has Germany enacting the second phase of their gas emergency plan. What do these plans entail?

On 23 June, Germany triggered the second stage of their emergency gas plan in response to the cut in Russian gas supplies since 14 June and the high price levels. A gas crisis team, which was already set up when the first emergency level was declared in late March, meets daily to monitor and assess the situation.

While the security of supply is currently still guaranteed, “the situation is tense”, according to the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action. If the Russian gas supply remains low, it will complicate achieving storage level targets by winter. Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection Robert Habeck called the current situation “serious”, referring to gas as a “scarce commodity”.

German government, customers search for solutions as Russia cuts gas supply

June 2022. Deutsche Welle. Moscow has reduced gas supply to Germany, Europe’s biggest economy, by 40 percent. German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck called on citizens to reduce their energy consumption.

He said: ‘Every kilowatt hour helps.’ His goal: to refill storage tanks before winter comes. Currently, they are about 58 percent full. The government also encourages utility companies to extend the use of coal-fired power plants. Right now, Germany has 70 such plants that run on hard and lignite coal.

Another solution would be to extend the use of nuclear power. The country still has 3 nuclear power plants which are supposed to be shut down at the end of the year. An industry group now says they could remain on the grid to reduce the dependency on Russian gas. Meanwhile, consumers are turning to energy consultants to figure out how to cut heating and electricity costs.