November 2025 |
251107 |
ENERGY CHRONICLE |
On November 13, the CDU/CSU and SPD agreed on a “power plant strategy” that reduces the initially planned expansion of 20 gigawatts of subsidized power plant capacity for grid stabilization by half. “We want to ensure that Germany's electricity needs are met even when wind and sun are not available,” said Chancellor Friedrich Merz, explaining the plan, which makes sense in principle but has attracted much criticism for being oversized and overly reliant on natural gas in its previously planned form (250706).
In its now scaled-back version, the power plant strategy of the black-red coalition largely corresponds to the concept of the previous government, the broad outlines of which had already been agreed with the EU Commission (240202). After the failure of the traffic light coalition in November 2024 (241101), its concept was not pursued further by the new government. Instead, the CDU/CSU and SPD based their approach on their coalition agreement, which states: "We want to encourage the construction of up to 20 GW of gas-fired power plant capacity by 2030 as part of a power plant strategy that is to be revised quickly and is open to all technologies.”
The new Federal Minister for Economic Affairs, Katherina Reiche (CDU), announced back in May “that we will now very quickly proceed with the tendering process for at least 20 gigawatts of gas-fired power plants in order to maintain a high level of security of supply in our country.” By gas-fired power plants, she initially meant pure natural gas power plants. Only later did she vaguely refer to a “prospect of switching to hydrogen.”
However, Reiche's ideas were rejected by the EU Commission in Brussels. Competition Commissioner and EU Vice-President Teresa Ribera did not want to approve more than the twelve gigawatts she had already granted to Reiche's predecessor, Robert Habeck. That was certainly the main reason why the black-red coalition now decided to scale back its ambitions. Green Party chairwoman Franziska Brantner therefore told the Handelsblatt newspaper (November 14) that the EU Commission deserved thanks for having “brought the German government back down to earth.”
After a meeting of the coalition committee, Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced that next year the federal government will “put out to tender a total of eight gigawatts for new controllable capacities for security of supply, which will go into operation by 2031.” These are to be natural gas power plants, with the condition “that they are technically capable of also using hydrogen and can be decarbonized in a technology-neutral manner in line with climate targets by 2045 at the latest.”
The wording used by Merz leaves open what “technology-neutral decarbonization” could mean other than the switch to hydrogen. Above all, it could also be understood to mean continuous operation of the power plants with natural gas, in which the greenhouse gases produced would be captured by CCS and stored somewhere underground.
In addition to the eight gigawatts, which correspond to the output of approximately 16 natural gas power plants, two gigawatts are to be put out to tender as “technology-neutral” from the outset. This would also allow operators of electricity storage facilities to apply. However, this would only be a drop in the ocean of the estimated well over 1000 gigawatts of connection requests for battery storage facilities that are currently flooding electricity grid operators (251101). In general, the question arises as to whether and to what extent the 10-gigawatt concept for power plants needs to be reconsidered in view of the increase in battery storage capacities.
In addition to these ten gigawatts, at least two gigawatts of hydrogen-compatible natural gas power plants are to be put out to tender by 2027 at the latest, with commissioning scheduled for 2032. The total tendered capacity for state-supported grid stabilization would thus remain within the 12 gigawatts that the EU Commission has signaled its approval for. Chancellor Merz expressed confidence that “talks with the EU Commission will be concluded as quickly as possible and a legally binding agreement will be reached. All the signals we are hearing from Brussels indicate that we can expect this.”