CEO of German utilities company RWE publishes a desperate post about the state of Germany’s energy sector after a 12-day wind drought led to a spike in the price of MWh to +€800
Wednesday, 12 Mar 2025
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Did I miss the part where he explained why the gas power plants of his company that were built to react to exactly those situations weren’t doing what they were supposed to do?
Isn’t that the CEO of a company that keeps tearing down entire villages to make space for their coal quarries?
The CEO of a energy company wants more gov funds? Wow, thats something new. /s Gas-Powered Plants are for that scenario currently, why doesnt he use these?
Don’t be fooled, he is campaigning for his company. Althouh he ist not really stating what to do, let this be clear: he wants his company to thrive. Maybe he wants more government subsidies for his companies electricity plants. And for all the nuclear-heads: RWE strongly opposes extension of terms for the last nuclear plants that were shut down. These plants even in the best case could only produce 5 % of the energy demand and it would require huge investments even investing in new fuel rods. The shutdown would have to be halted like 10 years ago to make any, not just economically, sense.
He and all of his greedy kind are the reason we suffer, block green energie, let the german infrastuctor rot and now cry and demand shit again, as u did with the AKWS and everything else, but never give anything back when u make billions. Scum needs to rot in a cell, same goes for the car industry and the bank sector. So tired of these ppl getting away with greed and lies.
This is a publicity stunt, nothing serious happened.
Krebber is a lying bastard. He just wants taxpayers money for his company with an outdated business model. Like RWE always did.
In Finland 10c / kWh is quite normal, and he’s complaining about a price that’s 80c / kwh which we’ve seen relatively often during the past few years. In fact I remember last winter the process hiked to 2€ / kWh which is 2.5X what he’s complaining about. Not saying 80c / kWh ain’t lot, but still the ”new normal” might be something that’s closer to that than 0.
It’s all a matter of a how many days of the year this happens. 12 days is just 3% of a year. You can’t have an energy solution that is more expensive 97% of the time and cheaper 3% of the time. You just need a good backup solution. At the moment that is gas storage and backup gas turbines.
15 Years of CDU/CSU hindering and ultimately destroying the national development and industrial production of PV and Wind energy projects and manufacturers. Thank you Angela!
Explain to me again why utilities aren’t government run? Why do we need corporate middle men to make things worse?
Okay, so he is making a big deal because something could in theory have happened but it didn’t happen and it has never happened in the past, while every month we are making more progress to prevent the thing that didn’t happen to never happen anyways.
Guess he likes publicity, maybe he should become a politician.
He is advocating for more expansion, and Germany does need that.
And he will get that, German Energy Companies got plans for large amount of Energy storage, surpassing the foresight of the German government by more than 5 times.
Also the solar build up is in good shape. The only thing lacking is Wind. This is mostly a bureaucracy problem. But companies do exist and energy providers pay good money for good people.
So the future, while Germany is in need of imports in the short future, looks promising.
And one more thing, those dark doldrums he is talking about do exist. And you can calculate them ahead of time. The worst one will always be during autumn. Every other doldrum is not as harsh as the autumn one. So his fearmongering is misplaced. And I assume he does this because of the upcoming German election. Although he has no reason to be worried.
Oh no, this will ruffle some renewables feathers.
Energy options should be diverse like a stock portfolio.
Humid air
Hydro
Wind
Geothermal
Generators/Batteries
Solar
Etc
I may be stupid, but does this post really have literaly nothing to say?
If only there was some way to prevent this, like not destroying your whole nuclear energy sector.
I was checking price of electricity between France and Germany recently and what hits me in the chart I was looking were two things.
First one, France electricity is not that cheap compared to German one
Second one, the price of French electricity is stable on short/mid term basis where the price of German one is unstable as hell, some day it cost a penny some day it’s worth a gold coin.
Or entreprises and industry don’t like Instability of cost, you can’t make projection with such variation of price.
Quick, close more nuclear power stations!
Unfortunately, I don’t have all the information needed at hand, but I see that he only talked about domestic production, not domestic production capacity.
In other words: we imported electricity, but that was more likely the case because it was cheaper than using all our domestic plants and not because we didn’t have the capacity to produce enough ourselves. That’s how a market economy works.
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There is ZERO chance that Russia disinformation campaigns didn’t affect the public opinion in Germany regarding nuclear energy.
Germany needs to dig deep, find some guts and get going on a MASSIVE energy infrastructure investment programme.
The same goes for the rest of Europe!
He is not a subjective person in this debate. But also, Germany’s approach to their energy system is next level full on retarded. Seems former “superpowers” are competing on who can f up 5he most nowadays.
Must feel good that they shut down all nuclear power plants….
As far as I’ve learned, legislation around electricity pricing plays a huge role in these price spikes. Price is set according to the last kWh needed, so even if wind and solar can sustain 90% of required load at €0,5 per kWh, the price will be the €8 that the imported supply costs. So, if electricity could be priced at the average price of supply instead, spikes wouldn’t be so high.
In August 2024, in an interview with Manager Magazin Germany, Markus Krebber claimed the opposite: [https://www.manager-magazin.de/unternehmen/rwe-chef-markus-krebber-beim-ausbau-der-erneuerbaren-sind-wir-deutlich-dynamischer-unterwegs-a-c22eb935-4aea-4303-a1da-4fcf3f989cd0](https://www.manager-magazin.de/unternehmen/rwe-chef-markus-krebber-beim-ausbau-der-erneuerbaren-sind-wir-deutlich-dynamischer-unterwegs-a-c22eb935-4aea-4303-a1da-4fcf3f989cd0)
My translation:
[Manager Magazin] *What’s working good for you personally in Germany?*
[Markus Krebber] *Liberal values, cosmopolitanism, pluralism, respect – on that ground problems and solution attempts can be discussed without thought restrictions. Really fundamental problems can be solved very fast – think of the energy crisis and securing supplies. We’re also more dynamic in expanding the renewable energy sector. And with regard to our permanent discussion about challenges and problems, we mustn’t loose sight of what’s already been achieved.*
[Manager Magazin] *What’s beneficial about working and investing in Germany?*
[Markus Krebber] *With its diverse, highly motivated and well trained people Germany is an attractive business and production ground. In the coming years, we need massive investments in the renovation of our country: energy supply, education, defense, digitization – all that opens up massive opportunities. Each one of us can contribute in preserving prosperity and making our country more robust.*
[Manager Magazin] *With regards to the future of the German economy: which opportunities do you sense?*
[Markus Krebber] *The modernization of the country opens up the opportunity to re-balance the task sharing between the state and and the private sector: When the political actors create the right regulatory framework, the motivation and business initiative of our entrepreneurs will flourish. A common goal and a distinct assignment of tasks is what it needs to create the necessary dynamics.*
So yes, I agree with the folks here that Krebber wants to secure state money for his company paddling panic just at the right moment before the snap elections in Germany take place. You’re caught, Markus, double speak is never smart.
13 GW is the equivalent of 8 EPR reactors, as they are being built in a few countries (3 running worldwide), or 10 or more reactors, as they have just been decommissioned in germany. Or 2,6 % of the installed solar power in China (~500 GW)
This is a difference that has been missed not just in recent years, but for decades.
I will never forget watching a talk from RWE managers with German policy makers, scientists and other people involved with the energy sector.
They want tax breaks, they get billions funding from the state but want more, they want security, they want cheap labor but are unwilling to take any of the risk. I don’t give a shit what any of these frauds say.
We know about the downsides of wind and solar and that we ultimately need some percentage of power that can be quickly in cases like this. It’s your job as an energy company to provide it and be able to keep prices stable.
Apparently there was no abundance
If they are lacking in power, maybe they should not have closed down those Nuclear power plants and replaced them with the worst thing you can ever make power from (environmentally speaking), coal.
So he is telling, that he could have made a shitload of money, if he had more base load power plants, and is complaining that they weren’t built.
Which would have been his very own job. If he foresaw that opportunity / the squeeze, he should have better positioned his company. Is the market working as intended or not? Seems like an investment opportunity.
Who could’ve forseen that!? (Literally every energy expert not bought out by the Green Party ideology) I am shocked.
No one, errr I mean EVERYONE could see this coming when Germany decided to close it’s nuclear plants.
Never go full retard.
and they will still not do nuclear. :O
Step 1 : build better interconnects within the country and with other countries.
Step 2: add more nuclear, solar and wind capacity.
Step 3 : celebrate.
Wind+solar when possible, nuclear as a solid foundation and biomass generators to cover whenever the wind and solar isn’t running that high.
Imagine if politicians actually thought and planned long-term instead of caring more for the next election in a few years.
They’ve had 20-30 years of serious and constant warning from scientists and experts.
I, for one, can’t wait for the 2050 golf stream collapse to kickstart the next european ice age.
I worked for RWE in the UK when I did an industrial placement as part of my degree.
These companies do a LOT of greenwashing.
What they do is wait for somebody to build a wind farm then buy it off them and operate it with bells and whistles to show how green they are. Then they get tired of it and sell the wind farm to another energy company so they can use it for greenwashing for a while then buy it back from them in an endless cycle.
I only worked with them for a year and a single wind farm was traded between RWE and EON twice.
Who could have possibly forseen this