CHANCELLOR Angela Merkel may rely on German consumers to shoulder the cost of exiting nuclear power as she seeks to shelter companies whose exports are driving growth in Europe’s biggest economy.
Merkel’s coalition will shut 17 atomic plants by 2022 under a plan outlined on Monday, tilting the energy mix toward renewables following the disaster in Japan.
The decision prompted the VIK lobby group to predict a €225 ($321) a year increase in power bills for a three-person household, based on a forecast from a committee advising the government that wholesale power prices may rise as much as 85 percent from now.
“Everything’s on the line here for us,” Annette Loske, who heads the lobby representing energy users, including steelmaker ThyssenKrupp AG and carmaker Volkswagen AG, said by phone from the city of Essen. “This electricity price increase specific to Germany can’t be allowed to reach industry.”
Industries from carmakers to chemical producers are pressing Merkel for exemptions from higher prices they say will make their products costlier than those of foreign rivals. Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen said earlier he plans to extend breaks in subsidies to more companies that are obliged to pay for cleaner forms of energy.
Germany became the biggest economy to announce a phase out of atomic power after a meltdown at Japanese reactors in March stoked safety concerns, costing Merkel’s Christian Democrats votes in state elections as support for the antinuclear Green Party soared to a record.
The chancellor, who scrapped plans to extend the lives of nuclear plants by an average of 12 years that she pushed through parliament last year, will present as many as six bills to Cabinet next week on the energy shift. These include a revamp of feed-in-tariffs for solar, wind and biomass power, new building insulation targets and plans for “smart” power grids.
The reversal will cost as much as €30 billion, and the government “hasn’t got a magic wand to wave that money out of a hat,” Joachim Pfeiffer, parliamentary energy and economic policy spokesman for Merkel’s party, said this month.
“It’s the consumer who will pay the bill, who else?” Michael Schaefer, an analyst with Equinet AG in Frankfurt, said last week. “You can’t switch off cost-efficient baseload power generation at the same time as trying to keep prices low.” Baseload is electricity delivered around the clock.
German households, already shouldering electricity prices that are among the highest in Europe, pay twice as much as in France, where 80 percent of electricity comes from atomic plants, French Industry Minister Eric Besson pointed out on Monday.
Exiting nuclear could boost wholesale power prices by as much as €50 a megawatt-hour, a committee charged by the government with assessing the economic and ethical aspects of atomic energy. At that rate, a three-person household’s annual bill would rise by €225, the VIK estimates. --Bloomberg News
