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Nuclear ban raises need for EU power grid: Commission

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Published 20 September 2011, updated 21 September 2011

EU energy ministers meeting in Poland today (20 September) will debate a paper by the European Commission, which makes the case for strengthening electricity interconnections in the face of Germany's nuclear phase-out.

The document, to be discussed by ministers over breakfast, is the latest from the European Commission to urge all 27 member nations to put collective energy needs above domestic agendas.

It follows announcements by Germany, which has unilaterally decided to phase out all its atomic plants by 2022 following the nuclear disaster in Fukushima earlier this year.

Italy voted to ban nuclear energy in 1987 and again rejected any resumption of the power source in a referendum this year.

The commission paper said less nuclear power reinforced the need for an EU-wide power grid, which the European Commission aims to achieve by 2014.

"This has highlighted that in an interconnected energy system and in the internal market all member states are affected by such decisions taken at national level and therefore have legitimate interests in ensuring they are effectively coordinated," it said.

"Until now, there has not been a systematic effort to bring national policy-makers together to coordinate their approaches to energy generation or to support each other and the Commission with their views and experience."

The Commission's ambitions to increase its oversight over energy issues have rankled some member countries and the private sector.

Earlier this month, Günter Oettinger, the EU's energy commissioner, unveiled proposals aimed at strengthening the EU's hand on energy matters vis-à-vis foreign countries such as Russia.

Analysts interpreted that as an attempt to prevent cosy bilateral ties between big gas consumers, such as Germany and Italy, and their major supplier Russia.

Poland, a traditional transit state that has clashed with Russia over transit fees, is bypassed by the new Nord Stream pipeline to ship Russian gas to Germany.

Shared infrastructure could maximise available supplies, helping to mute the impact of disruption, as well as improving energy savings, the Commission paper argues.

"The Germans quickly and unilaterally decided [to phase out nuclear]," said Katinka Barysch, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform in London. "They did not consult with their European neighbours and now after the event we're scrambling to cope with the consequences."

EurActiv with Reuters

Positions: 

Juergen Grossmann, chief executive of the biggest power provider, RWE, has lobbied for nuclear plants to stay open longer, arguing a quick exit would cost energy-intensive industry dearly and could threaten Germany's industrial base.

BusinessEurope, the EU's employers' group, sent a letter to EU Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger on 10 June, demanding an EU impact assessment into the phase-out's likely effect on energy costs. It asked that the issue be "explicitly addressed" in the EU's 2050 Energy Roadmap due this autumn.

Julian Scola, a spokesman for the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA), said Germany's nuclear phase-out will boost renewable energies, some of which he said are already cheaper than nuclear. "In the UK, the recent climate change committee's report showed that onshore wind is considerably cheaper than nuclear energy," he told EurActiv.

"It is perfectly legitimate for Germany to phase out nuclear power," he said. "It will create thousands of new renewables jobs and help make Europe more competitive in the growing global renewable industry."

COMMENTS

  • On the link http://bit.ly/dphUhC you can find a lot of information on Renewable Energy Scenario's for every country in Europe, including a lot of information on how to analyze these scenario's and setting-up a Renewable Energy Grid. This information is background information of the Master Program Sustainable Energy technology (SET) of the 3 Technical Universities (3TU) in The Netherlands.

    By :
    Anonymous
    - Posted on :
    20/09/2011
  • "The document, to be discussed by ministers over breakfast, is the latest from the European Commission to urge all 27 member nations to put collective energy needs above domestic agendas."

    --They live in another world. The EU won't see 2020.

    By :
    Levison
    - Posted on :
    20/09/2011
  • It would be fine to add the position of Siemens, and not ony the position of RWE...

    By :
    Olivier
    - Posted on :
    21/09/2011
Background: 

On 30 May, Germany's coalition government voted to shut all the country's nuclear reactors by 2022, in reaction to the Fukushima disaster in Japan.

The coalition agreed to keep the eight oldest of Germany's 17 nuclear reactors permanently shut. Seven were closed temporarily in March, just after the earthquake and tsunami hit Fukushima.

One has been off the grid for years. Six more reactors will be taken offline by 2021. The remaining three reactors, Germany's newest, will stay open for another year until 2022 as a safety buffer.

Before the shut-down started, Germany got 23% of its electricity from nuclear plants.

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