To: The Right Honorable Federal Environment Minister Dr. Norbert Röttgen
From: Athinarayanan Sanjeevraja
RE: Germany Energy Policy
Suggestions:
Good Morning Minister. German government decided to shut all the country’s nuclear power station by 2022. In my opinion nuclear gab should not be filled by new gas fired power plants because the total capacity of planned gas power plants in Germany adds up to about 8GW – this compares to about 20GW of nuclear power to be replaced. And in fact those 8GW overstate the part they will play in the actually generation of electricity. Gas power stations can be quickly started and shutdown. This means that a lot of them will be held in reserve to start up when wind power generation or solar power fall (increased cloud cover or sun set) or demand increases quickly for some reason. The first is in-line to be shut down during the mid-day peak of solar power or when wind power generations pick up. So it should not be surprising that the mainstay of new energy generation will be coal fired power plants, as they are the only other technology capable of replacing nuclear power plants. The expansion of renewable energy fell far short the requirements to replace nuclear power despite huge expenditure on energy generation. That was very clear from the beginning. The intermittent nature of wind and solar power makes them unsuitable for any role other than complementing other forms of energy generation such as gas – unless you have truly gigantic storage capacities. It also demands a tight integrated net to transmit power in order to get energy to where it is needed from where it is generated.
Minister, I believe that Germany ’s integrated climate and energy policy will remain a key contributor to making the energy sector competitive.
Thank you very much for your kind attention to this issue.
Sincerely,
Athinarayanan Sanjeevraja.
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