German power giants hold back clean energies

In the stations mix of the four giants the share of wind, biomass, earth heat and solar power, without old hydro installations, is only 0.1 to 1.7 per cent, compared with the German average of 10.8%.

At a maximum 10 to 15 per cent renewables are also negligible in the corporations’ investment plans.

"With their self-service mentality big energy corporations are blocking decisive steps for climate protection and supply security,” says
Andree Böhling, energy expert at Greenpeace.

"They’re delaying the conversion of the energy supply and with monopolistic profits damage Germany as an economic location. Their big-ticket public relations campaigns can’t disguise that.”

The study states that although the four corporations, which dominate 80 to 90 per cent of the German electricity supply, produce between two and 20 per cent of their power with renewable sources, these were mainly old hydropower installations.

The main producers of power from wind, biomass, earth heat and the sun were independent municipal corporations, medium-sized firms and private households.

E.on and RWE are now announcing investment of billions in renewables, but the actual sums amounting to less than 10% (E.on) and about 15% (RWE) of the totals, fall far short of what’s needed.

The corporations are mainly pursuing expansion of large power stations in order to consolidate their market-dominating position in electricity production and to achieve high profits.

At the same time their monopoly ownership of the transmission grids enables them to block their necessary extension.

For constant growth of clean energy generation and fair competition on the energy market, Greenpeace demands the establishment of an independent grid corporation to which all large energy suppliers have to surrender their transmission networks.

The biggest corporations, E.on und RWE, should also be forced to sell their holdings in municipal power companies and large power stations and be stopped from building any more large stations.

"The renewable energies have a stand-out role to play for the climate and the German economy because they reduce damage to the environment, durably secure affordable energy and create jobs.

“If the power companies additionally block the growth of renewables by delaying grid expansion, politicians have to break up RWE and Co. and thereby remove the oligopolistic structures on the energy markets,” says
Böhling.

Contacts: Andree Böhling, Tel. #49 (0)151-180 533 82 or press spokeswoman Cornelia Deppe-Burghardt, Tel.: #49 (0)151-145 330 87. The complete study (in German) is at www. greenpeace.de.