Mr Rainer Brüderle head of the German liberal party FDP told the paper Welt am Sonntag that “To close the nuclear gap in Germany's power generation capacity, more new gas and coal fired power plants need to be built than we had estimated. And this may well cost more than we thought.”

“Overly ambitious" were the words he chose to criticize Chancellor Merkel's plans to raise the share of renewable energies to 40% of Germany's energy mix as a way to counterbalance the capacity gap incurred by the nuclear phase out.

He said “It would be absurd if we were to shut down our nuclear reactors and then resort to importing nuclear energy from France or the Czech Republic.”

Gas and coal is seen as a bridge fuel to guarantee security of power supply in the interim until renewable energy can cover a greater share of German power demand.

The German environment agency UBA, however, sees „no danger of power cuts despite the loss of roughly 8,000 MW of nuclear capacity. Increased renewable production, energy efficiency measures and new fossil fuel plants already under construction would be sufficient to make up the shortfall.

Source - gastopowerjournal.com

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