Germany is facing electricity shortages that will drive critical industries out of the country after the government decided to shut down the last remaining nuclear power plants in favor of renewables, business leaders have warned.
The head of energy company RWE said he fears Germany will face an electricity shortage that will send prices skyrocketing in the already struggling country.
Markus Krebber, 50, warned that this will jeopardize Germany’s ‘competitiveness’ as an industrial center, meaning companies will be driven out of the country, taking much-needed jobs with them.
“Germany’s prosperity is based on a strong industry,” Krebber said BILD. ‘A scarce energy supply leads to high prices – that endangers Germany’s competitive position as an industrial location. We are seeing the first signs of de-industrialisation.’
His stark warning follows the shocking news that Germany has entered a recession – unlike the UK’s post-Brexit economy, which is expected to grow by 0.4% in 2023 and avoid a similar downturn.
Germany is facing electricity shortages that will see critical industries leave the country after the government decided to shut down the last remaining nuclear power plants (pictured) in favor of renewables, business leaders have warned
German energy chiefs have blamed the country’s poor prospects on the government’s green energy ‘disaster’, which saw the last remaining nuclear power stations shut down. Instead, the focus is now on sustainable energy supply from solar and wind farms.
But the intermittent nature of these green energy sources, which makes them prone to sudden drops during cloudy or windless periods, means that Germany’s electricity system remains vulnerable to electricity shortages and price volatility.
Krebber warned that this could have a devastating impact on German industries that are trying in vain to prop up the country’s floundering economy.
“As an industrial location, Germany has a serious problem: we don’t have as much energy available as we need,” Krebber told Focus. ‘This gap leads to high prices and therefore justified concerns about competitiveness.’
This all plays into the hands of Germany’s far-right parties, with Alternative for Germany (AfD)’s popularity soaring in the polls amid criticism of what it calls a costly green agenda.
The AfD, which disputes that human activity is a cause of climate change, has played on some voters’ concerns about the costs of the fossil fuel transition.
AfD leader Tino Chrupalla said more voters appreciated that the policies of the Greens, Scholz’s junior coalition partner who want a faster shift from hydrocarbons, have brought “economic war, inflation and deindustrialization.”
“We are the only party that would not form a coalition with these dangerous Greens,” he said.
Christian Kullmann, CEO of the chemical group Evonik, joined Krebber in his criticism of what he called the government’s “disaster in energy policy” and warned of its impact on German industries.
Cabinet is now focusing on sustainable energy supply from solar and wind farms (file image)
Kullman warned that Germany, which has traditionally been a hub for engineering, will no longer see bulk goods produced in the country (file image of a worker at a Volkswagen assembly line in Wolfsburg, Germany)
“In Germany, we pay the highest prices in the world for electricity and energy, and every industry, every economy lives and depends on a reasonable, cheap, available energy supply,” said Kullmann, 54.
Kullman warned that Germany, which has historically been a hub for engineering, will no longer see bulk goods produced in the country.
“We’ll probably say goodbye to these industries here in the near future — and it won’t be too long,” Kullman said in a stark warning. ‘Germany is under pressure as a business location.’
Roland Farnung, 82, the former CEO of RWE, added: ‘The energy policy now adopted by the federal government is practically an operation on the open heart of society with significant risks for German companies and the jobs located here. are.’
To counter Germany’s vulnerability to electricity shortages, according to Krebber, ‘massive investments’ must be made in green energy. But even with this investment, Germany’s energy producers must continue to restructure the country’s entire energy system at a record pace.
Krebber said: ‘The will and the money are there for it [investments in green energies]. In order to actually make investments, a reliable framework is needed in the long term that creates incentives instead of obstacles.’
And some experts say Germany will eventually have to return to nuclear power if it wants to phase out fossil fuels and meet its goal of becoming greenhouse gas neutral across all sectors by 2045, as wind and solar will not fully meet demand.
“By phasing out nuclear power, Germany is turning to coal and gas because there isn’t always enough wind blowing or sun shining,” said Rainer Klute, head of the pro-nuclear nonprofit organization Nuklearia.
The German government has dismissed such concerns, arguing that Europe’s integrated electricity grid allows Germany to import energy when needed while remaining a net exporter.
But German business leaders are still warning that Germany could face an electricity shortage that will drive companies to flee – and such a move will harm the struggling German economy.
Indeed, last month it was revealed that Germany was in recession after the country experienced an unexpected dip in the first quarter of the year.
Germany’s gross domestic product (GDP) fell by 0.3 percent from January to March, according to figures from the Bundesamt für Statistik.
The figures come as a major blow to the German government, which had boldly doubled its growth forecast for this year after the dreaded winter energy crisis failed to materialize.
The government forecast GDP to grow at 0.4 percent – up from a 0.2 percent growth forecast at the end of January – a forecast that is now likely to need to be revised downwards.
Germany’s Bild newspaper reported that the country’s economy had already “collapsed” by 0.5 percent in the winter quarter of 2022.
It comes as the International Monetary Fund was forced to admit that it had misjudged its forecast of the UK’s post-Brexit economy, which will now avoid a recession, despite doom and gloom from Remainers who portrayed EU membership as an economic need.
The foundation now expects the UK economy to grow by 0.4 percent in 2023, despite announcing last month that it would shrink by 0.3 percent.
