Electric cost up along with pollution German Power Rises to 19-Month High on Nuclear Halts, Fuel Costs
German power for next year advanced to its highest in more than 19 months as fuel costs increased, while the government was said to be making plans to shut eight of the country’s 17 reactors permanently.
Baseload power for 2012 rose as much as 55 cents, or 0.9 percent, to 60.30 euros ($85.45) a megawatt-hour, its highest price since Aug. 25, 2009, according to broker data compiled by Bloomberg. It traded at 60.20 euros at 1:20 p.m. Berlin time.
Baseload is generated and sold around the clock.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s coalition has agreed to seek the closure of eight of Germany’s 17 nuclear power plants, the Leipziger Volkszeitung reported today, citing unidentified government officials. The three ruling parties plan to propose legislation with revised safety standards that ensure the nation’s seven pre-1980s reactors and the Kruemmel plant will shut down, the newspaper said.
“There is no preliminary decision,” Steffen Seibert, Merkel’s chief spokesman, told reporters in Berlin today. “No political determination on what actions we will take at the end of the moratorium” has been made, he said.
The plants are all closed for repairs and safety reviews triggered by the Japanese nuclear disaster. They account for more than 25 percent of the country’s atomic power capacity.
“There are still too many questions remaining around the nuclear plants in Germany,” said Sebastien Terryn, a risk manager at Summit Energy Inc. in Waregem, Belgium.
Replacement Power
Permanent shutdown of the plants would mean more power from coal and gas plants would be needed to replace baseload output.
“The entire paradigm change touches the medium-to-long- term supply and demand balance,” said Peter Krembel, head of continental European power, carbon and cross-commodity trading at RWE AG’s supply and trading unit in Essen.
Coal for 2012 delivery to Amsterdam, Rotterdam or Antwerp traded near its highest price since October 2008. The benchmark contract gained as much as 1 percent to $133 a metric ton.
Nuclear output accounted for 23 percent of the power generated in Germany last year, according to the Berlin-based BDEW utility industry lobby group. Hard coal and lignite accounted for about 41 percent, and natural gas, 14 percent.
Bloomberg tracks prices from brokers including ICAP Plc, GFI Group Inc., Spectron Group Ltd., Tullett Prebon Plc and Tradition Financial Services.