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Energy, please: The Irsching gas and steam turbine power plant in Upper Bavaria

Photo: Armin Weigel/dpa

FDP energy politicians have welcomed the agreement on a power plant strategy within the federal government. “With the power plant strategy as a transition to a capacity mechanism, the coalition is setting the course for a safe, clean and cost-effective electricity system of the future,” explained FDP parliamentary group deputy Lukas Köhler.

(Read more about the key points of the strategy here.)

FDP: “Financiable” transition

This ensures that new gas power plants can be financed quickly without the costs going through the roof. With a capacity mechanism, power plant operators should be compensated for ensuring that their power plants are ready for use at all times and can step in when needed - so that they can earn money even when they are not producing electricity.

After a long struggle, the traffic light agreed this Monday on a strategy for building hydrogen-capable gas power plants in Germany. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) have agreed on the essential elements of the procedure as well as specifications for further projects, according to a joint statement on Monday.

Accordingly, the power plant strategy is intended to create the framework for investments in modern, highly flexible and climate-friendly power plants that will be able to be operated with hydrogen in the future. In the short term, new power plant capacities of up to four times 2.5 gigawatts of hydrogen-capable gas power plants are to be put out to tender. The funding is to be financed from the Climate and Transformation Fund, a special federal fund.

According to coalition circles, the costs are around 16 billion euros for the next 20 years. In general, the coalition wants to massively advance the expansion of renewable energies, especially from wind and solar, by 2030.

Union: “No clarity”

However, the Union still sees many open questions regarding the federal government's agreement. The energy policy spokesman for the Bundestag parliamentary group, Andreas Jung, said that announcements remained the same, that there were more questions than answers and that there was still no clarity for investors. »The hanging section of the traffic light endangers climate goals, security of supply and Germany as a business location. In order to expand renewable energies, we need new gas power plants at the same time, which can then be operated in a climate-neutral manner as soon as possible.

The traffic light coalition still lacks the central answer: the financing of the new capacities remains unclear, criticized the CDU politician. There is also no clarity regarding the regional component. “We also need generation capacity in the strong industrial centers in the south.”

The federal government is leaving it open whether further gas power plants will be built beyond the announced ten gigawatts of output. There will be further discussions about this, said a spokesman for the Ministry of Economics. It is important that companies were first sent a signal that the first tenders for the power plants should be launched in the summer.

Energy industry: “Breaking the Gordian Knot”

Representatives of the energy industry have expressed positive initial reactions to the agreement. “The Gordian knot has now been cut,” said the head of the transmission system operator 50Hertz, Stefan Kapferer.

The Düsseldorf energy group Uniper was confident that it would get a piece of the pie. Uniper boss Michael Lewis expects his group to build some of the new capacity for Germany. “We are very relieved that the federal government has agreed on a joint approach to the power plant strategy,” said the manager. "As soon as we have been able to check the details, we will decide whether and with what investments we will participate."

From 50Hertz boss Kapferer's point of view, the question now arises as to where the power plants should be built: "Now it's important to find the right locations for the new back-up power plants." The regionalization of the back-up power plants is an important one Contribution to get the system costs of electricity prices under control. This is the only way to save costs that arise from network expansion and interventions in the generation output of electricity producers.

The Stuttgart network operator TransnetBW expressed disappointment - the agreement was nothing more than a first important step. For company boss Werner Götz, it is all the more important that the four 2.5 gigawatt power plants now being targeted are built quickly in the right locations, primarily in the south.

Neubauer: Is 10 gigawatts enough?

Mona Neubauer (Alliance90/Greens), Economics Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, fears "that the short-term tender for 10 gigawatts of guaranteed power will not be sufficient to guarantee security of supply within the set time frame." However, she told SPIEGEL that she welcomes the fact that planning security is now emerging and wants to accelerate the energy transition in her state with accelerated approval procedures.

mamk/dpa-AFX/Reuters