POWER May 2013 - 36

ENERGY POLICY
plants, which began operation in 1980 or earlier
(and later, another one already in long-term
shutdown), would be shuttered (Figure 1).
In June 2011, the cabinet and parliament
passed a set of six laws and one ordinance-
the so-called " Energy Package " -that adopted
120 individual measures of the 2010 " Energy
Concept " and cemented a plan to permanently
decommission all 17 of the nation's reactors by
2022-without abolishing the nuclear fuel tax
agreed to in September 2010.
Energiewende was officially under way,
giving the power-intensive nation just over a
decade to increase renewable generation from
17%, as it stood then, to 35%. Saying the country's
grid would remain " controllable, " the
Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur)
urged states to approve more than a dozen new
coal and gas plants and transmission upgrades
over the next several years.
In the aftermath of the nuclear moratorium,
the country's four major nuclear plant operators
called foul, loudly. Robbed of allowances to produce
the considerable remaining gigawatt-hours
awarded by the Schröder government, RWE
head Jürgen Grossmann called the phase-out decision
a gross breach of property rights. E.ON's
CEO Johannes Teyssen warned of substantial
financial losses, and Vattenfall CEO Oystein
Loseth demanded " fair compensation " for losses
as a result of the decision, based on " writing off "
the plants, cancelled upgrades scheduled after
September 2010, and decommissioning costs.
The utilities have turned to the courts and
since won some crucial victories. Challenges
that the nuclear fuel tax-which amounted
to €1.5 billion by January 2013 within two
years-could not qualify as a consumption
tax were granted by the Hamburg Tax Court in
September 2011, leading to refunds of €74 million
for E.ON and €96 million for RWE. The
federal government, however, later contested
the tax court's ruling and resumed collection of
the tax, prompting the Hamburg court to rule
more definitively that the German tax on nuclear
fuel was simply " to siphon off the profits of
the nuclear plant operators. " The Constitutional
Court is now reviewing the case.
The German government is meanwhile struggling
to fend off generator requests for more
than €30 billion in compensation for confiscation
of generating rights and costs associated
with closure of the eight reactors. In February
2013, the administrative court for the German
state of Hesse found the state ministry had no
legal grounds when it ordered, on decree from
the Merkel administration, shutdown of RWE's
Biblis A and B reactors. Damages are set to be
decided in upcoming civil court proceedings.
A Renewable Lifeline
In 2011 critics denounced the decision to
phase out nuclear and replace it with renew36
www.powermag.com
ables
as a " moral imperative " rather than an
economic one. An assortment of think tanks
warned of a " cost-tsunami " that was about to
hit Germany and increase industrial operating
costs by nearly a fifth in the country that already
had one of the highest power prices in
the EU. Meanwhile, the term " green-paradox "
was coined and went viral, expressing a muchmaligned
support for renewables that had little
impact on carbon emission mitigation.
But against the backdrop of the decade-long
nuclear contests, the FIT system (as established
by the EEG in 1991) that obligated supply
companies to purchase wind, solar, and biomass
power and then pass costs to consumers
was fueling tremendous growth of renewables.
Between 2000 and 2010-under a looming urgency
to secure energy supplies posed by the
Schröder nuclear phaseout-the share of renewables
in Germany's power profile soared
from 6.4% (37 TWh) to 17% (103 TWh), and
installed nameplate capacities surged by almost
500%, from 12 GW to 56 GW. Photovoltaics
(PV) fared the best, buoyed by the highest FIT
of all technologies, with an average compensation
of 47¢/kWh in 2010, bringing in a total
€3.9 billion that year.
According to government statistics, the
closure of the eight reactors in March 2011
prompted another mammoth wave of new renewables
installations. The share of renewable
capacity in the total generation mix increased
from 34% at the end of 2010 to a stunning 41%
in July 2012 (Figure 2). Comparatively, the total
amount of power generated by renewables
was 115.2 TWh (Figure 3), or about 20.9% of
the nation's 551.4 TWh. About 91.2 TWh was
eligible for remuneration under the EEG.
That may all be poised to change, however.
This year, a renewable surcharge on private
consumer electricity bills rose to a record 5.28¢/
kWh, up 50% from 2012, 3.530¢/kWh in 2011,
1. A nuclear snub. In 2010, Germany's nuclear fleet comprised 17 operating reactors (six
boiling water reactors and 11 pressurized water reactors, all built by Siemens-KWU), the last of
which began commercial operations in 1989. After Fukushima, the government shuttered eight
reactors, and the remaining nine are scheduled to close by the end of 2022. Sources: POWER,
World Nuclear Association
Brunsbüttel
1979 2009 2018 2011
Kiel
Brokdorf
Hamburg
1986 2019 2033 2021
Schwerin
Kruemmel
Bremen
Unterweser
Berlin
1979 2012 2020 2011
Hannover
Emsland
1988 2021 2035 2022
Düsseldorf
Grohnde
1985 2017 2031 2021
Erfurt
Potsdam
Magdeburg
1984 2016 2030 2011
Dresden
Biblis
A:
B:
1975 2008 2016
1977 2011 2018
Phillipsburg
Isar
I:
II:
1980 2012 2026
1985 2018 2032
I:
II:
2011
2019
Neckarwestheim
Gundremmingen
1979 2009 2019
1979 2022 2036
Shut down
Operational
2011
2022
B:
C:
1984 2016 2030
1985 2016 2030
Commercial operation
Provisionally scheduled shut-down (2000)
2010-agreed shutdown
2011 closure plan
POWER | May 2013
2017
2021
Stuttgart
I:
II:
1979 2011 2019
1988 2020 2034
2011
2022
2011
2011
Wiesbaden
Grafenrheinfeld
1982 2014 2028 2015

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POWER May 2013

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