Germany

Germany’s levy to promote renewables under the 2008 Renewable Energy Act (EEG) will climb to €0.624/kWh in 2014—a 20% increase that represents nearly a fifth of residential electricity bills. The measure

A federation of Germany’s biggest companies last week called for urgent reforms to the country’s renewable energy strategy within the first 100 days of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s newly elected government, including abolishing feed-in-tariffs (FITs) that they say have sent power prices in the country soaring. Key points of the 19-page reform proposal submitted by the […]

  If you’ve seen U.S. coal industry executives casting wistful glances across the Atlantic recently, there’s a reason. In the U.S., natural gas is enjoying a boom unseen in decades, perhaps ever. New production from shale should make the country a net exporter within a decade. New gas-fired plants are starting up almost as fast […]

Europe’s third-largest power provider on Tuesday announced it would take offline 3.1 GW of natural gas and coal power plants in Germany and the Netherlands, citing a “continuing boom in solar energy.” Echoing several European utilities, Germany-based RWE has underscored the declining profitability of fossil fuel–fired plants that it says is pegged to fundamental changes […]

Germany has chosen to transform its energy system within a few decades—an ambition that has evoked equal admiration and confusion. Has Europe’s largest economy embarked on a rational path to an energy future that will make it the bellwether for global acceptance of renewables, or will the complex array of current challenges encumber its grand transformation?