In the media: Steel industry fears CO2 trade burden
“G7 in Figures”
Germany’s Federal Statistical Office Destatis has published a booklet ahead of the G7 summit in Bavaria this June, including data on energy and climate protection efforts in the world’s leading industrial countries Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States. “G7 in Figures” provides facts on energy intensity, electricity production from renewable sources, import and export of energy and CO2 emissions.
Download the booklet in English here.
Frankfurter Rundschau
“Municipal energy utilities face losses”
Combined heat and power stations of municipal utilities could get into the red within the next two to five years, utility holding Thüga has warned, according to the Frankfurter Rundschau. 100 German utilities belong to the Thüga group, which despite falling wholesale prices on the power market saw its operational profit rise by 4 percent to 351 million euros in 2014, the article says.
Read a CLEW factsheet about munipial utilities here.
Read a CLEW factsheet about combined heat and power here.
dpa
“Parliament relieves two more sectors”
Two more metal processing sectors will be exempt from paying the renewable energy surcharge on power bills, the German parliament has decided. Another 80 companies and their power consumption of 0.75 terrawatt-hours will be privileged, the dpa reports.
Read the dpa report in German here.
dpa
“Steel sector fears billion euro burden because of emission trading scheme”
The German steel industry worries that making European CO2 allowances more expensive under a planned market stability reserve (MSR) will lead to “unbearable costs” for the sector, dpa reports. If the MSR was implemented, German steel businesses would face an extra burden of 1 billion euros annually, the President of the German Steel Federation, Hans Jürgen Kerkhoff, said on Thursday. Prices for steel could go up by as much as 20 percent a representative from TyssenKrupp Steel Europe said, according to the report.
Read the dpa report in German here.
Read a CLEW factsheet on the European Emissions Trading System here and an article on the MSR here.
Wirtschaftswoche
“Tough wrestling between the state and companies”
Decommissioning Germany’s nuclear power stations and storing their radioactive waste will cost several billion euros, writes Angela Hennersdorf and Reinhold Böhmer in the Wirtschaftswoche. These long-term costs may become time-bombs for the large energy companies, one of whom has already warned that if its business falters due to the Energiewende, it may not be able to foot the bill for its radioactive assets. The German Chancellery frenetically works to come up with a public fund that energy firms could pay their savings for the nuclear clean-up into before it is too late, they write. How such a fund could work and how much it would cost the German taxpayer, how this model would work in detail and what does it entail for the German taxpayer, are other questions that the authors discuss in the Q&A part of the article.
“Brown coal is the backbone and security net for the German energy supply”
Members of the brown coal (lignite) industry said at the annual “Lignite day” in Cologne that power from lignite would be indispensable as by 2023 power production from nuclear plants with a capacity of 12,000 megawatt would have to be compensated by other power sources. As the development of renewable power was costly and their integration into the power system a big challenge, lignite would be needed as a “stabilising factor”, a press release by Lignite Association DEBRIV said. The brown coal industry would support the energy transformation into a low-carbon economy but there shouldn’t be bias towards one energy source or political decisions that lead to structural changes that endanger whole sectors and regions.
Read the press release in German here.
