Germany’s Economy Ministry is drafting a bill that would allow shuttered coal and oil power plants to return to the market in emergencies, such as gas shortages, the website of the weekly Der Spiegel reported Friday.
According to the magazine’s sources, the law is to be passed quickly so that it can take effect this coming winter.
Der Spiegel reports that the ministry justifies the bill by pointing to the escalation in the Middle East, which increases the risk of gas shortages. But, the weekly noted, the U.S. war with Iran has been going on since late February of this year, and Economy Minister Katherina Reiche “apparently neglected to prepare safeguards for the current winter in the time since.”
Der Spiegel recalled that German gas storage facilities were only about 61% full on Nov. 1, the lowest level since record-keeping began.
The weekly pointed out that companies stored little gas because of high prices during the summer, and that in winter they would have little chance of selling it at even higher prices.
“In such a situation, the German state can intervene and initiate additional injection of gas into storage through the state-owned company Sefe. Reiche did not do this for a long time, counting on the market to regulate itself. Only at the end of the year did she instruct Sefe to inject additional gas,” Der Spiegel stressed.
The ministry’s draft concerns a second law on providing replacement power plants in order to reduce gas consumption in the electricity sector. The first law was passed in the summer of 2022, when Robert Habeck of the Green Party was economy minister. At that time, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, gas was exceptionally expensive and hard to obtain.
According to Der Spiegel, the law prepared by the German government is set to expire at the end of March 2028.
The business daily Handelsblatt was the first to report on the draft law.
From Munich, Iwona Weidmann (PAP)
