By Paul Homewood
While Tories and Labour fight over who can destroy the UK’s grid first, Germany is building a new gas fleet:
Germany will use auctions to ensure new gas power plants are built, which the government sees as necessary to secure supply at times when renewable energy does not deliver enough electricity, said economy minister Robert Habeck. “We will build the power plants we need for the times when wind and sun do not provide enough electricity out to tender,” said the minister at the presentation of a report on the progress of the country’s transition to climate neutrality. In recent years, Germany has used auctions to incentivise and control the expansion of wind and solar energy. Companies compete in these tenders to receive financial support for renewable electricity. “There are already instruments that we can use — and we will create more — so that by 2030 we will have created about 25 gigawatts of additional alternative capacity to coal-fired power plants.” These would be powered by natural gas, and later hydrogen “as soon as possible,” he said. His government would present a “power plant strategy” by the summer.
The government parties had said in their coalition agreement that several new gas power units are necessary to complement renewable electricity production, but Germany’s energy industry has long warned that companies have little incentive to build them. The plants would only be used when renewable energies do not supply enough electricity at peak demand periods, or at times when wind and solar is not sufficient. Keeping gas plants ready would have to be paid, instead of only the kilowatt hours produced.
via NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
March 9, 2023 at 10:46AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 