Actually, the green-dominated traffic light government wanted to have dozens of new gas-fired power plants built in the coming years in order to complete the phase-out of nuclear power by the end of the year and to accelerate the end of coal-fired power generation;

at best, this phase-out should be brought forward from 2038 to 2030.

When producing electricity, natural gas emits far more greenhouse gases than nuclear fission, but less than hard coal and, above all, domestic lignite.

Christian Geinitz

Business correspondent in Berlin

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The new gas power plants planned by Red-Green-Yellow would have been fed primarily from Russian pipelines such as Nord Stream.

However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has now ruined those plans.

The Kremlin could cut off the gas itself, or the EU might impose a gas embargo on Moscow, as it has done for coal and is considering oil.

"Reduction of gas consumption also in the electricity sector"

The latest developments are a serious setback for Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and his party.

Not only do they have to say goodbye to their gas plans, they are also being forced to leave coal-fired power plants – which they regard as “dirty slingshots” – longer on the grid or at least in reserve.

This is what a draft law that was announced in Berlin on Tuesday amounts to.

His aim is to temporarily take gas power plants off the grid in the event of a "gas shortage" in order to use the gas saved in this way for purposes where it cannot be replaced, for example in industry or for heat generation.

The new regulation is called the Replacement Power Plants Availability Act and will be voted on by the federal ministries this Wednesday.

The new provisions are limited until March 31, 2024 - if Germany wants to get by largely without Russian gas.

The reason given on Tuesday from Habeck's house was: "In the event of an actual or impending gas shortage, the reduction in gas consumption is also necessary in the electricity sector." However, it is important to the authors that it is only a matter of providing a coal reserve, which presumably - or hopefully - will never be used.

It's about hard coal-fired power plants with an output of 2.1 gigawatts (GW), which would actually have been shut down in October, and another 0.5 GW, for which the disconnection from the grid was due in 2023.

The time will be extended for hard coal plants with 4.3 GW and oil-fired power plants with 1.6 GW, which are already in the grid reserve.

In the lignite, there is a so-called security stand-by for shut down power plants over 1.9 GW, which is also extended over time.

This would mean that the total reserve at the end of the year would be 10 GW.

This can only be activated by regulation in the event of a gas shortage.

This will not change anything on the coal phase-out path by 2030, according to Habeck's house.

The permissible greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation would probably not be exceeded.

In the event of a gas shortage, the gas-fired power plants are to be made so expensive by means of a financial surcharge, a “penalty”, that they are not worthwhile.

There should be exceptions for CHP systems that also generate heat.

Currently, 10 to 15 percent of German electricity is still generated with gas.