Energy fallout from Ukraine war to impact vote in key German state

The Ukraine war and its effects on energy supplies and prices will be on many voters’ minds when they cast their ballot in the German state of North-Rhine Westphalia on 15 May. The election in the Western state with a strong heavy industry presence and a population of 18 million is Germany’s most important one this year. The highly uncertain result will not only influence the progress of Germany’s landmark energy transition in that state, but also the federal government’s ability to fulfil its promise to massively accelerate the country’s move towards climate neutrality.

The election is mainly seen as a voter judgement on how the federal government, a coalition of the Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP), handles the fallout from the energy crisis exacerbated by the Ukraine war. Secure and affordable energy supply has become the primary concern for voters in Germany’s most populous state, followed by rising inflation rates triggered by energy price spikes, according to a Forsa poll.

Consequently, the war in Ukraine and its economic and social ripple effects have dominated the campaign debates. An embargo on Russian gas imports would hit NRW, one of Europe’s core industrial regions, particularly hard, as many jobs rely on readily available energy supplies for furnaces, steel works, chemicals production and other energy-intensive processes.

But the dangers of global warming are also on the ballot. Last summer, parts of the state were hit by torrential rains resulting in disastrous floods that killed more than a hundred people. Climate change was widely seen as a contributing factor, and many voters were frustrated with the state government’s disaster management, which is still being debated today. Moreover, rows over the ongoing expansion of opencast coal mines constantly keep the end of fossil fuel use on the state’s news agenda.

The incumbent government last year announced the goal of reaching 50 percent renewables in power production by 2030, up from the current figure of less than 20 percent. Coal power still plays a particularly important role in NRW’s energy system, a legacy of decades of close links between municipalities, industrial companies and the coal mining industry in the region. Besides more renewables, the CDU-FDP coalition also said more gas-fired plants are needed to replace coal, provide energy for industry and facilitate the state’s ambitious buildout of hydrogen infrastructure, according to its “energy plan” released just before the  outbreak of the war in late February 2022.

But reaching the ambitious renewables goal in just eight years is hampered by the fact that NRW already lags behind on existing climate action programmes and is slow to roll out wind turbines and other renewable power infrastructure. The expansion of wind power in particular is a hotly debated topic in the densely populated state that has seen large-scale environmental degradation due to the extensive coal mining activities in NRW for hundreds of years.

A minimum distance of 1,000 metres between wind turbines and residential areas that the acting CDU-FDP government opted for at the state level makes finding adequate construction sites more difficult, but the rule is under fire amid Germany’s push for greater energy independence through renewables and is set to be challenged if the current coalition parties are voted out. The SPD and the Greens both want to scrap the strict regulation that keeps large chunks of the territory out of reach and thus complicates the task of finding available construction sites. In contrast, state premier Wüst argues that construction in woodlands could be eased instead.