Fan Makers Howl: The Sound of Squealing Pigs from Germany

Germans have woken up to the true cost of the insanity brought to them by their political betters aka the Energiewende.

That ludicrous policy has foisted thousands of fans all over the German countryside – subsidised to the tune of €billions – but has, perversely – and predictably – resulted in increased CO2 emissions as grid managers scramble to build coal-fired plants to cover the FACT that wind power can only ever be delivered at crazy, random intervals (see our post here).

German industries are bailing out en masse and heading to the US in order to get the benefit of power prices which are less than 1/3 the cost Germans are forced to pay.  Power punters are howling at their government about their crippling power bills, if they haven’t already been chopped from the grid – some 800,000 homes have been disconnected, so far.

With renewable targets and subsidies about to be slashed – wind weasels, and especially fan makers, are squealing like stuck pigs.

Here’s Bloomberg detailing the brewing calamity faced by fan makers.

Germany’s Planned Clean-Energy Aid Cuts Hurt Turbine Makers
Bloomberg
Stefan Nicola
21 January 2014

Germany’s clean-energy industry said government plans to accelerate cuts in aid to operators of wind and solar-power plants threaten to derail the country’s transition to renewable sources.

Wind-turbine maker Nordex SE (NDX1), which has benefited from booming installations on land, fell the most in more than a month in Frankfurt trading after weekend reports that Economy and Energy Minister Sigmar Gabriel aims to rein in subsidies. German utilities RWE AG and EON (EOAN) SE welcomed Gabriel’s plans.

Proposals to reduce aid for new onshore wind units by as much as 20 percent in 2015 from last year’s levels are “counterproductive,” the BWE wind lobby said. Excessively harsh cuts “threaten the wind energy expansion all over Germany” and so risk “derailing the energy switch,” Sylvia Pilarsky-Grosch, BWE’s head, said in an e-mailed statement.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government intends to cut the cost of her plan to shutter Germany’s nuclear plants and move Europe’s biggest economy toward renewables. She says the top priority of her third-term government, which took office last month, is to modernize the system of clean-energy aid after rising wind and solar costs helped send consumer power bills soaring. German household electricity costs are the second highest in the 28-nation European Union.

Coalition Meeting

Gabriel, who assumed overall control of the biggest energy overhaul of any developed country, seeks to limit subsidies paid to operators of land-based wind turbines to no more than 9 euro cents a kilowatt-hour in 2015 and reduce the expansion to about 2,500 megawatts a year, according to a ministry document prepared for a meeting of Merkel’s coalition on Jan. 22-23. Developers will get the current aid if their units are authorized before Jan. 22 and enter operation this year.

An allied proposal to charge developers of solar plants who use the power themselves would deter investors and stop ordinary Germans from taking part in the energy switch, the BSW-Solar lobby said in an open letter to the chancellor.

“While the U.S., Japan and China invest massively in solar energy, the German photovoltaic market has more than halved as a result of aid cuts that are too speedy,” BSW-Solar said in the letter, e-mailed today.

The government also plans to reduce the target of expanding solar panels to 2,500 megawatts a year, from 2,500 megawatts to 3,500 megawatts currently, and limit new biomass units to 100 megawatts a year, according to the document. Der Spiegel magazine reported its contents two days ago.

Shares Slump

Nordex shares slumped 5.7 percent to 10.91 euros, the steepest one-day plunge since Dec. 12.

“We welcome the fact Mr. Gabriel is addressing the matter so soon,” Annett Urbaczka, a spokeswoman at RWE (RWE), Germany’s second-biggest utility, said by phone from Essen. She declined to comment on the details of Gabriel’s proposals.

They carry the potential to “reduce the cost when expanding renewables,” Carsten Thomsen-Bendixen, a spokesman for EON, the biggest utility, said today by phone. “That’s good news for electricity consumers.”

Merkel’s cabinet will vote on a draft bill April 9, Gabriel told reporters today in Berlin. The law is to take effect Aug. 1.
Bloomberg

Couldn’t be happening to a nicer bunch of lads.

But – according to wind weasels and their parasites – it shouldn’t be happening at all.

Wind power – on their pitch – is already a perfect substitute for coal and gas fired power – is already economically competitive with conventional generation sources – and is so effective and cost efficient that it actually lowers power prices.

No seriously, if you don’t believe us, why not slip into an alternative dimension and have a look at The Climate Speculator, Ruin-Economy and yes2ruining-us – these clowns pitch it up on a daily basis (see our post here).

STT – for one – has never bought it.  And, it would appear, from the howls coming from the German wind weasels’ lobby group, BWE – they don’t really buy it, either.

Chop the targets and the subsidies – and these scammers will disappear faster than a snowflake in summer – and they know it.