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.
energy
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.
Germany Triggers Emergency Gas Plan to Secure Supplies
March 2022. Bloomberg. European energy prices soared Wednesday as Germany moved to secure gas supplies in case of a potential disruption in flows from Russia. Bloomberg’s Anna Shiryaevskaya reports.
A funny comment: “Eat more sauerkraut. You’ll get more gas.”
First gas flows from Germany’s new LNG terminal | DW News
2022. Deutsche Welle. The opening of Germany’s first LNG import terminal is a milestone in the country’s plans to find alternate sources of natural gas. The terminal, floating off the North Sea coast, was built in a record time of just under 10 months.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz greenlit the LNG projects on February 27 this year — just days after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine. The facility opened off of Wilhelmshaven is slated to feed an estimated 6% of Germany’s gas demand into the energy grid each year.