Germany could consider pausing the closure of its remaining coal-fired power plants until new gas-fired units are ready to replace them, according to chancellor Friedrich Merz.
"The issue of security of [power] supply for our industry is really very high on the list of priorities," Merz said at a gathering of energy company officials in Berlin.
The government in its coalition agreement highlighted its commitment to the 2038 coal-phase out timeline, but said when coal and lignite-fired plants are closed or moved into the grid reserve must be dependent on how quickly new dispatchable gas-fired capacity is built.
Merz's latest remarks came after German grid regulator Bnetza did not mandate any new closures for hard coal and small lignite stations for the 2028 target year.
This marked the second consecutive year in which Bnetza did not order any statutory reductions, after the grid regulator last year did not issue any closures for the 2027 target year.
The maximum amount of coal and lignite-fired capacity Germany can still legally have active by 2028 is 20.25GW, but only around 19.4GW of capacity will be active by that year, Bnetza said.
Germany's left-leaning coalition government, which collapsed in November last year, had aimed to phase out coal by 2030, eight years before the country's official target date.
Merz, the leader of the conservative CDU/CSU party, had campaigned on restoring Germany's industrial competitiveness. The German cabinet last week approved measures to reduce consumer power prices, including a reduction in electricity tax for energy-intensive businesses, fulfilling part of its initial pledge to lower the electricity tax to the European minimum "for all".
The government in March also said it planned to use reserve power plants to stabilise electricity prices — marking a departure from power plants in the grid reserve being used only to ensure system security and not to reduce price peaks.
Germany in November and December last year experienced two prolonged periods of "Dunkelflaute", when low temperatures — which support electricity demand — and an absence of wind and solar generation force increased gas burn at combined-cycle plants, raising electricity prices. But almost 7GW of coal-fired reserve power plants remained unused during these periods at the end of last year, according to German hard coal importers association VDKi.
Bnetza is scheduled to issue mandatory closures annually until 2035, if needed, to regulate the gradual coal and lignite phase-out by 2038. Germany had around 14.7GW and 8.7GW of lignite and coal-fired capacity on line, respectively, as of May this year, according to latest Bnetza data.
