In view of the coal and nuclear phase-out, new gas-fired power plants are considered to be indispensable.
Berlin It is about a single sentence in the draft coalition agreement. In the “Financial Markets” chapter, under the heading “Taxonomy”, it says: “The Federal Government will work against the inclusion of nuclear power and gas as sustainable technologies.”
With the EU taxonomy, the EU Commission wants to create uniform standards for sustainable investments so that more money flows into green technologies. In the case of technologies that do not receive the classification, it will be difficult or even impossible to win over banks for financing.
The sentence, which found its way into the text at the urging of the Greens, thus contains explosives from the point of view of the energy sector. It could massively hinder investments in new gas-fired power plants. Most experts and politicians are convinced that new gas-fired power plants are indispensable on the way to climate neutrality.
The future federal government must “work in Brussels to ensure that the use of natural gas is at least temporarily considered sustainable in the taxonomy until fossil natural gas can be replaced by CO2-free gases and hydrogen,” said Ingbert Liebing, General Manager of the Association of Municipal Enterprises (VKU), the Handelsblatt. Exclusion of natural gas from the taxonomy carries the risk that the financing of the necessary expansion of gas-fired power plants will be “finally prevented”.
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This in turn contradicts the climate protection goals in the electricity and heat sector, endangers security of supply and thus also contradicts the goals of the exploratory paper on which the SPD, Greens and FPD agreed in October.
In the EU it is controversial which technologies are to be classified as sustainable
The energy industry points out that new power plants, which are initially operated with natural gas, can be converted to hydrogen operation over the years. Technically, that’s not a problem. Manufacturers already offer gas turbines that are “H2-ready”. “We now have to prepare for this transformation process. The new federal government in the EU must campaign for this and make clear agreements in the coalition agreement, ”said Liebing.
But the Greens want to prevent natural gas from being classified as sustainable in the EU taxonomy, even temporarily. From negotiating circles it was said that the issue is very important to the Greens. The point is being fought intensely.
In view of the nuclear and coal phase-out, new gas-fired power plants are considered indispensable. You always have to step in as a back-up solution when wind turbines and photovoltaic systems do not make any significant contribution to electricity generation.
There is also a controversy among the member states as to which technologies are to be classified as sustainable. France, for example, is massively promoting the recognition of nuclear power as a sustainable technology. Germany rejects this. Chancellor Angela Merkel told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday that she saw little possibility of preventing nuclear energy from being classified as a green technology in the EU. “Germany has not given up its resistance,” said the Chancellor, referring to a draft by the EU Commission in which nuclear energy is classified as sustainable.
In the case of the path taken by the EU of a so-called delegated act based on the taxonomy regulation, the proposal could only be rejected if 20 EU members voted no. “This is a very high hurdle and is unlikely to be the case,” she added, referring to the 27 Member States. “The process itself can only be stopped with difficulty if the EU Commission presents something.”
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