“Lex North Rhine-Westphalia”

Germany’s failure to resolve national alignment of power grid fees is down to politicians stalling in order to appease voters in the country’s most populous state North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW), Michael Bauchmüller writes in Süddeutsche Zeitung. Former Social Democratic (SPD) economy minister Sigmar Gabriel “did not want to have a debate about additional financial burdens for industry in the heavy-industry heartland” before the vote in May, Bauchmüller writes. Gabriel, who is now foreign minister, deliberately erased a passage from a draft law designed to end regional differences in grid fees, which are up to twice as high in northern and eastern Germany as in southern and western regions, including NRW, according to Bauchmüller. National alignment appears out of reach in spite of an appeal by Chancellor Angela Merkel to make progress: the CDU suggests partially including grid fees in the renewables surcharge, for which energy-intensive industries get rebates – a solution that might not get a majority in the federal coalition with the SPD before the parliamentary summer break next week.

Read the article in German here.  

See the CLEW factsheet Power grid fees – unfair and opaque? for background.