Solar stocks plunged around the world after Germany, the largest market for panels, said it will make quicker cuts to subsidized rates and phase out support for the industry by 2017. --Bloomberg, 20 January 2012
The costs of subsidizing solar electricity have exceeded the 100-billion-euro mark in Germany, but poor results are jeopardizing the country's transition to renewable energy. The government is struggling to come up with a new concept to promote the inefficient technology in the future. --Alexander Neubacher, Spiegel Online, 18 January 2012
Germany's exit from nuclear power could cost the country as much as 1.7 trillion euros ($2.15 trillion) by 2030, or two thirds of the country's GDP in 2011, according to Siemens, which built all of Germany's 17 nuclear plants. The estimate of 1.7 trillion euros assumes strong expansion of renewables, with feed-in tariffs as the biggest chunk of costs. -–Christoph Steitz, Reuters, 17 January 2012
One fifth of every German industrial company has moved activities to foreign countries, or plans to do so, because of the uncertain energy and raw material supply. This is the result of a survey conducted by the German Chamber of Industry and Commerce (DIHK), in which 1520 companies participated. DIHK-President Hans Heinrich Driftmann finds this alarming: He fears that Germany is losing its appeal for foreign investors in the wake of it’s energy supply transformation.--Dieter Keller, Südwest Presse, 18 January 2012
Germany’s green politicians here were too dim-witted to foresee the obvious consequences. The German electricity market is on the verge of collapse. The scale of the EEG Renewable Energy Feed-in Act is of unprecedented stupidity, a folly that will certainly go down in German history textbooks. The backpedaling away from solar subsidies in Germany is now happening so fast that it’s making people’s heads spin. Call it the reverse energy supply transition – one from fantasy back to reality. --P. Gosslin, NoTricksZone, 19 January 2012
The European Commission could prevent new nuclear plants being built in the UK if it upholds a complaint over alleged unfair subsidies submitted to Brussels by a pro-renewables campaign group. --Business Green, 20 January 2012
