Some say the world’s second biggest exporter is undergoing a crisis of confidence with regards to renewables – and particularly, wind energy. Nigel Blackaby, Chairman of the Advisory Board, POWER-GEN Europe 2012 takes a look at the ramifications for the rest of the continent.
In the wake of Fukushima disaster, energy experts now agree that securing Europe’s future electricity supply will require an increasing convergence between existing fossil fuel sources and the fast-growing renewable generation sector.
Nowhere is this fusing of interests required more than in Germany, in the light of the government’s decision to phase out all nuclear power by 2022. The case for integration is now compelling and is something that an increasing number of countries are going to have to consider.
The current debate among those in the power industry is how Germany will fare without a new generation of nuclear power plants and the phasing out of the existing fleet, coupled with growing opposition to coal-fired generation.
Many in the industry feel that the technology most likely to benefit in the short term is gas fired generation, but that the recent nuclear-free policy offers Germany a chance to be a pioneer in a new energy system, which matches a substantial green energy sector with a conventional generation base.
