RWE AG 
Several people familiar with the talks told the Reuters news agency on Thursday that the question of whether hydrogen-capable power plants should also receive start-up funding in addition to operating subsidies remains unresolved. After a meeting in the Chancellery on Tuesday evening with Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) and Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) failed to produce a breakthrough for the power plant strategy, Scholz (SPD) had called another conference call for Thursday morning. In addition to Lindner and the economics department, top representatives from the energy sector such as Uniper and RWE were also on the call.
The core of the strategy is to promote the construction of new gas-fired power plants with billions of euros to compensate for the growing but fluctuating feed-in of wind and solar power. The plants are to be gradually converted to climate-friendly hydrogen, but this is likely to be significantly more expensive than natural gas for a long time to come.
According to government and industry circles, Habeck and Scholz are largely in agreement and are pushing for a swift decision, while Lindner still has reservations.
This is because financing is also difficult in view of the tight budget situation. Tenders are planned for the plants. Whoever demands the lowest subsidies will be awarded the contract. Cost estimates from the industry recently amounted to up to 40 billion euros by the mid-30s. The implementation of the strategy will also determine whether Germany can shut down the last coal-fired power plant by 2030, as demanded by the Greens in particular.
LINDNER AGAINST START-UP FUNDING FOR POWER PLANTS
Government and industry representatives told Reuters that Lindner is primarily opposed to investment funding for the new plants and only wants to support their operation. This would not only be cheaper. Lindner also wants to open the door for a so-called capacity market in the electricity sector. This would allow power plant operators to sell a guaranteed output in advance, without the amount of electricity that actually flows playing a decisive role. This would allow electricity traders to hedge their risks in the event that renewable energy is not supplied or is supplied less.
At present, the market only pays by the kilowatt hour. To prevent a blackout in the event of miscalculations, a number of power plants are available as an emergency reserve, but are not part of the electricity market. According to the information provided, Lindner does not want to commit to a specific type of power plant, but rather put them out to tender on a technology-neutral basis.
However, the government would face problems with this: Firstly, such a capacity market would have to be approved by the EU, which would probably take at least two years. In addition, Habeck would then have to explain in Brussels that security of supply would otherwise not be guaranteed in Germany. However, he would like to avoid this kind of revelation.
Time is also pressing: industry and the energy sector are demanding quick decisions, as the construction of gas-fired power plants takes around six years. In the next few years, wind and solar energy, which already cover more than half of the electricity demand, are to be drastically expanded. And without new power plants, coal-fired power stations would have to run beyond 2030, which the Greens want to prevent.
According to people familiar with the talks, these issues were discussed in the background during the conference with the Chancellor. Above all, however, the industry representatives should have provided information on how many power plants with what output they considered necessary and where these could be built.
(Edited by: Hans Busemann; If you have any questions, please contact our editorial team at berlin.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for politics and the economy) or frankfurt.newsroom@thomsonreuters.com (for companies and markets).)
- by Markus Wacket
