Vattenfall delays lignite sale / How green is the Bundesliga?
Handelsblatt
“Vattenfall delays coal sale”
Vattenfall has postponed the sale of its German lignite operations, insiders told Handelsblatt’s Jürgen Flauger. The Swedish utility initially planned to make a decision on Wednesday but is now targeting mid-April, according to the report. Whereas Vattenfall management is said to strongly favour Czech utility EPH as a buyer, union representatives are campaigning for transferral into a foundation, reports Flauger.
Read the article in English (behind paywall) here.
Read a CLEW factsheet on the assets for sale here.
BILD am Sonntag
“That’s how green the Bundesliga is”
German football clubs are trying to make their stadiums more environmentally friendly. The BILD am Sonntag compared the efforts of Bundesliga teams and found that FC Augsburg is the only team worldwide with a CO₂-neutral stadium. FC Bayern Munich draws about 40 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, and many clubs have installed photovoltaic systems to help cover their electricity needs.
Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung
“RWE aims to cut another 2,000 jobs”
German utility RWE aims to cut another 2,000 jobs by the end of 2018, having already let go 10,000 employees over the last three years. Uwe Tigges, Chief Human Resources Officer of the Executive Board, blames the sharp decline of wholesale electricity prices, in an interview with the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. “We save not only when it comes to our shareholders. Our employees have long since felt the effects of the difficult situation,” he said with reference to the company’s decision to forego dividends this year.
Read the article in German here.
Read the complete interview in German here.
Manager magazin
“BMW, Mercedes and Audi are scared of this car”
California start-up Tesla will directly attack German carmakers BMW, Audi and Mercedes with its new mass-market Model 3, which is to be unveiled on 31 March, report Wilfried Eckl-Dorna and Nils-Viktor Sorge in manager magazin. The authors point to a Bloomberg analysis showing that Tesla’s new car will be cheaper than most entry-level luxury cars “made in Germany”, and arguing it might leave the competition behind, just as the company has done with its luxury Model S e-car. “The Model 3 might be capable of revolutionising the car world,” write Eckl-Dorna and Sorge.
Read the article in German here.
Find the Bloomberg analysis in English here.
Read a CLEW dossier on the Energiewende in the German transport sector here.
Frankfurter Rundschau
“A market as sure as death”
The decommissioning and deconstruction of nuclear power stations has become a huge global market, and the German government is competing with its own company, reports Thorsten Knuf in Frankfurter Rundschau. It is the only shareholder of Energiewerke Nord (EWN), a company that has gained experience in decommissioning reactors in East Germany.
Find the CLEW dossier on the difficulties of Germany’s nuclear phase-out here.
Handelsblatt
“How to kill an industry”
Germany’s massive push into renewable energy has a "dark side" as higher power prices cause entire industries to shrink, write Gilbert Kreijger, Stefan Theil and Allison Williams in Handelsblatt Global Edition. “The fact that Germany is a world leader in green power is by now familiar. Much less familiar is the price the country is paying for it, not just in cold hard cash, but in growing losses and dislocations across the entire economy,” according to the authors.
Find the article in English here.
Read the CLEW dossier on the Energiewende’s effect on German industry here, and a dossier on its effect on the labour market here.
Find the CLEW factsheet on industrial power prices here.
Read the CLEW factsheet “What business thinks of the energy transition” here.
UNEP / Frankfurt School of Finance and Management / Bloomberg New Energy Finance
German investments in renewables drop by 47 percent
At 8.5 billion US dollars in 2015, Germany saw the lowest investment volume in renewable energy in the past 12 years, according to UNEP's 10th "Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment Report 2016". While the report cites a record 286 billion dollars in global renewable investments last year, Germany drops to the 6th place in the country ranking. The main reasons are a general uncertainty concerning the future policy in the renewable energy sector, as well as the move from feed-in tariffs to an auction-based system for new installations, according to the press release by the Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.
Read the press release in German and English.
Read the study in English here
