By P Gosselin
A recent investigative interview by Apollo News featuring former Hamburg Environmental Senator and energy expert Fritz Vahrenholt has sparked intense debate over the stability of Germany’s power grid and the future of its industrial economy.
As Germany aggressively transitions away from traditional baseload power and over to erratic renewable energies like wind and sun, government agencies are secretly preparing for worst-case energy shortages.
Forced shutdowns, no financial compensation!
According to documents obtained by Apollo News, the Federal Network Agency (Bundesnetzagentur) has been quietly developing emergency protocols over the past two years. Under these plans, the agency could order industrial plants consuming over 10 GWh per year to limit or completely shut off electricity usage with just 24 hours’ notice—and crucially, without any financial compensation.
“This is how far the energy transition has pushed us. We are at the level of South Africa, where they also do rolling blackouts […] because they cannot generate enough electricity,” said Vahrenholt. “”It is not about the climate at all. In the end, this is about anti-industrial policies, policies designed to destroy Germany. That is what ultimately comes out of this.”
Vahrenholt warns that the simultaneous exit from nuclear power and ongoing coal phase-outs have severely depleted Germany’s controllable, dispatchable energy supply. While wind and solar capacity have expanded significantly, they remain weather-dependent and cannot supply power during extended periods of low wind and sunlight (Dunkelflaute).
Although the German government plans to construct new gas-fired power plants as a backup, Vahrenholt highlights that these facilities will not be operational until 2031 or 2032 at the earliest. This leaves a dangerous multi-year window where grid instability and forced rationing threaten industrial stability.
Profound economic and industrial consequences
The threat of sudden, uncompensated power shutdowns creates immense operational uncertainty. This environment deters foreign investors and pressures domestic industrial companies to shift investment and production abroad. Forced curtailments would primary hit energy-intensive key industries, including aluminum, copper, steel, chemical, glass, and paper manufacturing.
Relying heavily on imported natural gas carries geopolitical risks and volatile prices. Furthermore, the political push to eventually transition these plants to green hydrogen threatens to drive future electricity prices to uncompetitive levels.
Solutions proposed by Fritz Vahrenholt
To restore energy reliability and protect the industrial base, Vahrenholt outlines three critical steps: 1) Stop the shutdown of remaining coal-fired power plants to preserve crucial back-up generation, 2) bring 3 to 6 recently closed nuclear reactors back online. According to Vahrenholt, this is technically feasible and would provide decades of zero-emission baseload power at a fraction of the cost of yearly renewable subsidies. 3) tap domestic gas reserves in states like Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt to lower energy costs and reduce dependence on expensive foreign Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) imports.
Using a model based on US EIA data, the following costs should be contrasted the repeated official statements of “Renewables” being “9 times cheaper” than conventional power generations technologies.
Based on the Weather-Dependent “Renewables” in EU(27)+UK installations of ~650GW with annual output equivalent to ~99 GW or ~15% productivity. These calculations give an indication of the scale of additional bare bones costs already incurred across Europe.
The current combined extra costs in Europe of not using Gas-firing amount to ~2.7 US$ trillion or ~11.3 times more than the cost of Gas-firing.
The current combined extra costs in Europe of not using Coal-firing amount to ~2.2 US$ trillion or ~4.1 times more than the cost of Coal-firing.
The current combined extra costs in Europe of not using Nuclear power amount to ~1.6 US$ trillion or ~2.3 times more than the cost of Nuclear power.
see:
https://edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/a-few-graphs-say-it-all-for-renewables/
https://edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/the-costs-of-weather-dependent-renewables-against-conventional-power-generation/
https://edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/comparing-power-generation-technologies/
There is another solution to the blackouts.
Just get rid of the people.
Too soon?
That’s the final solution. I’m not sure they’re there yet, but …
Once they got down to > 500 mio global population(403202800 to be precise)
the renewable powergrid will turn out to be sufficient.
No, it will collapse long before that.
Consequences schmonsequencs!
– Daffy Duck
The only thing which will wake up politicians is a huge blackout which causes enormous damage. This applies to Britain too. Only then will policies change.
“When will they ever learn”?
The problem is that politicians kid themselves that it won’t happen because they can’t foresee how it will happen. Once it does (and there are many possibilities), they become believers, but only then, despite warnings from all those who know better than they do.
Not cynical enough.
There are different classes of Politician. On one end of the continuum you have bat scat insane lunatics who can’t differentiate from their delusions and reality. They have this train set in the basement and they truly believe life should/could be that train set. This is the DSA who are quickly consuming the Democratic Party in the US.
The vast majority of them though are of the Retard class and are just plain childish, petty and stupid having no idea how the world works around them. They are drawn to politics because they have no marketable skills and feel entitled. This makes them ideal puppets for Dark Tetrad types who use them as proxies by simply appealing to their vanity (and promises of wealth, power and sex with children). The public often hears the excuse for catastrophic failure “..I wasn’t positioned for success” as the closest you will ever hear of them accepting blame. Otherwise we get to watch the nylon gears grind to find a way to twist this into blaming the victim. Simple DARVO. They are usually destroyed by the Dr. Frankensteins or The Party who made them when these politicians no longer serve their purpose.
Pretty much every minister, senator and the popular “elected representatives” in formerly Western Nations are of this category.
The ones to beware of are the Tony Fauci, Hitler, Mao types who are pure demonic, zero empathy, amoral, and draw a following. They no longer need sociopathic billionaires to support them. They are exceptionally helpful to the Cause of destroying human flourishing. These are the ones who say “Don’t let a crisis go to waste” and by waste, they mean failing to advance their demonic cause of capturing wealth, power and sex with children.
So it really depends on who is in front of the cameras, as to what to expect. Odds are that we will all be told that this is all Trump’s Fault© that or Climate Change™
Too much to unpick there, AWG, other than to say that that’s the first time I’ve ever been told that I’m “not cynical enough” (it’s usually the opposite).
Also, I think, somewhat unfair to model railway enthusiasts who seem nowadays, along with railway enthusiasts in general, to be the only group left that the law doesn’t protect from discrimination. (If there were such a thing as an irony tag, I’d add one).
Excellent summation, AWG! I only have two small bones to pick. First the term “Retard Class,” while apropos is not sufficiently specific enough to be useful. Better to break it down into the three categories from early 20th Century medicine; idiot, imbecile, and moron!
The idiots are the useful type; easily persuaded to believe whatever they are told. The imbeciles are capable of occasional independent thought but rely on groupthink for virtually ALL of their opinions. The morons are more dangerous as they believe they are intelligent. This includes most of the midwits that have been toiling through the university in majors with the word “Studies” included.
The second nit is the lack of differentiation between sociopaths and the true psychopaths like Fauci, Hitler, and Mao. The criminally insane tend to recognize each other and congregate together for protection and opportunities. That is why we see so many Western governments turning against their own citizens and importing low trust, violent immigrants. Once the political system and bureaucracy reach as saturation level, the country becomes a malignancy; feeding on the power and treasure of the body politic!
Harsh. Cold. Accurate.
Your being optimistic. They won’t learn, they will just continue to blame others.
Capitalists, the power companies, the US, Trump, etc.
Not really, they will just build more wind and sun. When you have a headache from banging your head to the wall every day the solution is not taking pills, a bath, aroma therapy, acupuncture but stop hitting the wall with your head. Just like communism, Iran’s war, Eu energy and green policies it’s that we haven’t done enough. Just a little more and we will reach paradise. Now I will hit another wall with my head, maybe that will help.
With all the doom and gloom predictions about germany in the past 20 years it should be a wasteland by now.
I’ll add it to the list of failed predictions, like the ones about renewables and EVs.
Renewable energy has already been a disastrous failure; it has hugely increased electricity prices and reduced grid security.
Disruptions in minutes (orange) have decreased over time while the share of renewables (blue) has increased.
The merit order system coupled with high gas prices are the reason for higher energy prices
More verbal diarrhoea, and on this case visual diarrhoea from MUR
The graph demonstrates a correlation: more renewables coincided with low outage durations. It does not demonstrate causation: that renewables were the reason reliability remained high, nor that they had no negative impacts elsewhere in the system.
Yes, the chart shows that Germany’s renewable electricity share increased between 2006 and 2018 while average outage minutes remained relatively low. But that alone does not prove that growing renewable penetration had “no negative effect” on security of supply.
The graph simply plots two trends side by side.
The biggest flaw is that electricity reliability depends on many factors besides renewable generation: grid investment, reserve capacity, interconnectors with neighbouring countries, network upgrades, balancing services, and operational practices. Because none of these variables are shown, the chart cannot isolate the effect of renewables from everything else happening in the German power system.
Another issue is that the chart only uses outage duration (SAIDI-style interruption data) as a measure of reliability. Customer outage minutes are important, but they do not show the cost of maintaining reliability, the amount of backup generation required, redispatch costs, curtailment, or other measures of system stress. A grid can remain highly reliable while becoming more expensive or more complex to operate.
The presentation is also somewhat persuasive rather than neutral. By placing renewable share and outage minutes together and then asserting that renewables had “no negative effects”, the graphic encourages the reader to draw a causal conclusion that the data itself cannot establish. A more accurate title would be that renewable generation increased while outage durations remained low during the period shown.
Many words, no data.
As opposed to your style, few words, a few propaganda sites. They funny thing is that more often than not, the propaganda sites you chose don’t even support the point you think you are making.
Precisely, my argument – no data to back up the supposed correlation.
Update the chart. You have provided old data.
Not mentioned is the increased part of fossils for backup, and that the “renewables” produce when demand is low.
The idea that gas prices are responsible for high electricity prices is propaganda promoted by the renewable energy lobby. Every country which has installed useless renewable energy has seen a huge increase in electricity prices. The renewable energy lobby is desperate to defend their subsidies. The fact that renewable energy requires subsidies tells you all you need to know about the cost of renewable energy. The major power companies told MPs that electricity prices would still rise even if gas prices fell to zero.
https://ideas.energy/ideas/uk-energy-executives-warn-of-20-bill-rise-despite-falling-gas-prices
Because of Germany’s industrial degradation and collapse, it now uses less electricity than in 1985.
It is an un-developing country. !
Going backwards fast !!
This idiocy of stopping electricity to big uses will drive them away as well, which will only exacerbate that situation.
Yes, Germany may eventually be able to run mostly on wind and solar…
… when there is no industry left !!
Why Germany’s economy is collapsing faster than anyone expected?
You don’t talk about the give-away of electricity not used to f. e. Switzerland.
Germany pays for taking the overproduction.
The German pay for not produced electricity because of dunkelflaute, to strong wind or missing wind or sun.
Redispatch costs increase year by year, that are the main reasons for high prices.
The chart produced by the Agency for Renewable Energy isn’t a proof, it’s propaganda at it best.
Nobody else had brought any data to the discussion to disprove it. Just some wild claims.
The data for the graph itself is from the
Bundesnetzagentur (BNetzA)
https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Home/home_node.html
and BDEW Bundesverband der Energie- und Wasserwirtschaft e.V.
https://www.bdew.de/
Hardly propaganda sources.
Look at the ©.
Says it all.
Please update your chart to 2025.
Why are you showing us a chart with 8 year old data? Hasn’t the Agentur fűr Erneuerbare Energien e. V. updated their data since 2018? Is it that more recent data clearly shows an increase of the Versorgungsunterbrechungen to all time highs?
Yet renewables get the subsidies and reliables get the taxes which pay them. Funny how that works.
As bnice2000 has noted below, German electricity consumption has decreased substantially in that time period as the country deindustrialises. This alone could easily explain the trend.
Here’s a longer list of failed predictions to add to your list – link
Already the first one: Prediction talking about US, chart shows world. Such journalistic quality, much wow.
For conventional oil in the US peak predictions weren’t that far off.
That’s a nice color you are wearing, what is it, maroon?
I think it’s one called ignoranimus.
Ignorasaurus! Dwelling predominantly in it’s reptilian “brain!”
That, sir, is an insult to maroons everywhere!!
Germany is a wasteland now compared t pre Merkel = 20 years ago.
We are not far away from a wasteland.
More and more people are fired, industries close or relocate their production to other countries, shops are closing, restaurants are closing etc, and why?
To high energy bills, to much bureaucracy and regulations etc.
Using a model based on US EIA data, the following costs should be contrasted the repeated official statements of “Renewables” being “9 times cheaper” than conventional power generations technologies.
Based on the Weather-Dependent “Renewables” in EU(27)+UK installations of ~650GW with annual output equivalent to ~99 GW or ~15% productivity.
The current combined extra costs in Europe of not using Gas-firing amount to ~2.7 US$ trillion or ~11.3 times more than the cost of Gas-firing.
The current combined extra costs in Europe of not using Coal-firing amount to ~2.2 US$ trillion or ~4.1 times more than the cost of Coal-firing.
The current combined extra costs in Europe of not using Nuclear power amount to ~1.6 US$ trillion or ~2.3 times more than the cost of Nuclear power.
see
https://edmhdotme.wpcomstaging.com/the-costs-of-weather-dependent-renewables-against-conventional-power-generation/
Giving Greenies the keys to the power grid is like giving kids a box of matches and telling them to go have fun. Sooner or later, you know you will have to call the fire department. And people keep telling you that but you just laugh, and do it anyway. Why, I don’t know.
Well, this is the country that decided to focus on Stalingrad instead of taking the rich oil fields to the south. Germans have a poor record when it comes to energy and are easily distracted.
The Germans weren’t there to steal oil – that’s a US/UK tradition(they call it “bringing peace,freedom,domocracy ” – but only to those tyrannies that refuse to work with=for them).
There was some serious dispute with international socialist Stalin wanting to control huge parts of Europe the national socialist Hitler had also on his wishlist.
A real conflict – not the typical globalist Anglo-Saxon business war.
The Brits btw tried to re-steal the Baku oil fields for their Bankers but failed.
Interesting how the far left always proclaims that the US is doing X, Y or Z, purely to steal oil. Yet somehow, the US never actually steals any oil.
The paranoid fantasies of the socialist/communists get more amusing every year.
Germany, the UK, California or NY—which virtue signaler will go off the cliff first? Or will someone else slide into first place (looking at you Australia and Canada)?
Probably California. Our household electricity costs are higher than any European country, thanks to Newsom’s ruinous policies.
My bet is still NY-I’m waiting for the perfect (Winter) storm. But, ya never know what’s behind the curtain.
Without fossil fuels or nuclear energy every country/state that embraces NetZ will fail. That’s the plan, and it’s working. China, India, Russia, and for now the USA, know it and aren’t joining the lemmings off the cliff. Germany being one of the most fervent and early adopters of NetZ will be the poster boy for consequences.
Germany was oblivious to reality that their “Energy Transition” was only an “Electricity Transition”.
The world populated from 1 to 8 billion in less than 200 years, not from that black tar we call crude oil, but FROM the more than 6,000 products and transportation fuels MADE from fossil fuels, the same products and transportation fuels that wind and solar CANNOT make..
Today, we’re a materialistic society that wind turbines and solar panels CANNOT support.
Wind and solar CANNOT make EV’s, or any of the products or fuels that get made from fossil fuels that support: Hospitals, Airports, Militaries, Medical equipment, Telecommunications, Communications systems, Space programs, Appliances, Electronics, Sanitation systems, Heating and ventilating, Transportation (vehicles, rail, ocean, and air), Construction (roads and buildings), and nearly half the world’s population relies on synthetic fertilizers made from fossil fuels. With the help of hospitals, doctors, and medications, life longevity increased from 40 to 75+ during those 200 years. In fact, nearly every measurable improvement in human well-being since 1850 can be traced back to the power of coal, oil, and natural gas. And they remain the reason billions are alive and thriving today.
It’s the Dark Ages 2.0, with neo-feudalism and an aristocracy of Western elites and CCP leaders ruling over the energy, food, and freedom impoverished plebs! What could go wrong?
The Deplorables might get torches and pitchforks this time around.
There are no trump voters in germany
By now even most of the trump acolytes should see that he runs them and their country into the ground.
If you feel addressed by this:
You may want to work on yourself.
Amazing. The “government” of Germany is destroying everything the Allies rebuilt after the war. Why did we bother?
They plan on implementing Directive 10-289
There is zero excuse for this, we know why it is happening and we know who is responsible. Government bureaucrats, administrators and so on need to be held accountable for the damage they have caused. Their free ride needs to end now. There is no mystery as to why this is happening.
Don’t worry, the EU has a plan. Just some more trillions for wind and sun!